The translational landscape of mTOR signalling steers cancer initiation and metastasis. Academic Article uri icon

abstract

  • The mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) kinase is a master regulator of protein synthesis that couples nutrient sensing to cell growth and cancer. However, the downstream translationally regulated nodes of gene expression that may direct cancer development are poorly characterized. Using ribosome profiling, we uncover specialized translation of the prostate cancer genome by oncogenic mTOR signalling, revealing a remarkably specific repertoire of genes involved in cell proliferation, metabolism and invasion. We extend these findings by functionally characterizing a class of translationally controlled pro-invasion messenger RNAs that we show direct prostate cancer invasion and metastasis downstream of oncogenic mTOR signalling. Furthermore, we develop a clinically relevant ATP site inhibitor of mTOR, INK128, which reprograms this gene expression signature with therapeutic benefit for prostate cancer metastasis, for which there is presently no cure. Together, these findings extend our understanding of how the 'cancerous' translation machinery steers specific cancer cell behaviours, including metastasis, and may be therapeutically targeted.

published proceedings

  • Nature

altmetric score

  • 23.5

author list (cited authors)

  • Hsieh, A. C., Liu, Y. i., Edlind, M. P., Ingolia, N. T., Janes, M. R., Sher, A., ... Ruggero, D.

citation count

  • 982

complete list of authors

  • Hsieh, Andrew C||Liu, Yi||Edlind, Merritt P||Ingolia, Nicholas T||Janes, Matthew R||Sher, Annie||Shi, Evan Y||Stumpf, Craig R||Christensen, Carly||Bonham, Michael J||Wang, Shunyou||Ren, Pingda||Martin, Michael||Jessen, Katti||Feldman, Morris E||Weissman, Jonathan S||Shokat, Kevan M||Rommel, Christian||Ruggero, Davide

publication date

  • January 2012

published in