Molecular Mechanism for Loss of Cell Adhesion in HER-2/neu Overexpressing Tumor Cells

摘要

The HER2 proto-oncogene is amplified and overexpressed in approximately 25% of breast cancers. Amplification and overexpression of HER2 is correlated with poor patient prognisis, lack of responsiveness to tamoxifen treatment, responsiveness to adriamycin chemotherapy and responsiveness to Herceptin anti-HER2 immunotherapy. In this proposal we are characterizing changes in cell adhesion related to HER2 overexpression. We have investigated the effect of HER2 overexpression on alterations in cell adhesion in 3 cell lines engineered to overexpress HER2. Relative to parental control cell lines, HER2-overexpressing cell lines showed altered cell adhesion on selected extracellular matrix proteins, suggesting that integrin receptors are involved in this process.