Deciphering the impact of somatic mutations in exon 20 and exon 9 of PIK3CA gene in breast tumors among Indian women through molecular dynamics approach.
Activating mutations of PIK3CA are the most frequent genomic alterations in estrogen receptor (ER)-positive breast tumors, and selective phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase α (PI3Kα) inhibitors are in clinical development.
For example, although signaling and metabolic profiles of breast tumors with PIK3CA or AKT1 mutations are, as expected, highly similar, they display markedly different, sometimes even opposite, profiles to those with ERBB2 or EGFR amplifications.
We validated the top ranking genes, i.e., PIK3CA and PIK3CB, by showing that their forced expression confers resistance to lapatinib in vitro and found that their mutation/overexpression is associated to poor prognosis in human breast tumors.
Previous work in animal models showed that p110α was the key isoform in breast tumors driven by oncogenes, including MT and HER2, while p110β was key in prostate tumors driven by Pten loss.
Thus, BAY 80-6946 induced 100% complete tumor regression when dosed as a single agent every second day in rats bearing HER2-amplified and PIK3CA-mutated KPL4 breast tumors.
Expression of EXO1 module was found as indicative of elevated cell proliferation, genomic instability, activated RAS/AKT/MYC/E2F1 signaling pathways and loss of p53 activity in breast tumors. mRNA-drug connectivity analysis indicates inhibition of RAS/PI3K as a possible targeted therapeutic approach for the patients with activated EXO1 module in breast tumors.
Conditional loss of ErbB3 delays mammary gland hyperplasia induced by mutant PIK3CA without affecting mammary tumor latency, gene expression, or signaling.