Here we report that the N-terminal ankyrin repeats of TRPA1 directly bind to the C-terminal proline-rich motif of FGFR2 inducing the constitutive activation of the receptor, thereby prompting LUAD progression and metastasis.
With further investigation using these linked read data, the FGFR2 copy number alteration was determined to be a deletion-inversion motif that underwent tandem duplication, with unique breakpoints in each metastasis.
Deep-sequencing of a primary tumor and metastasis from a single patient, and functional validation in culture, reveals that TGFBR2 and FGFR2 act as drivers of gastric cancer.
While the primary tumor exhibits amplification of the Fibroblast growth factor receptor 2 (FGFR2) gene, the metastasis notably lacksFGFR2 amplification but rather possesses unique biallelic alterations of Transforming growth factor-beta receptor 2 (TGFBR2), indicating the divergent in vivo evolution of a TGFBR2-mutant metastatic clonal population in this patient.
Nuclear FGFR2 expression was associated with increased risk of metastasis (odds ratio (OR)=7.61, P=0.008), as was membranous PDGFRα (OR=13.71, P=0.015), membranous VEGFR1 (OR=8.01, P=0.037), nuclear MIB1 (OR=1.26, P=0.008), and cytoplasmic p27 (OR=1.037, P=0.030).
Fibroblast growth factor receptor 2 amplification was found to be associated with a higher pT stage (P = .023), higher pN stage (P = .038), and distant metastasis (P = .009) and to be significantly associated with lower cancer-specific survival by univariate analysis (P = .012).
Consistent with these tumor-suppressive properties, FGFR2-IIIb and FGFR2-IIIc each diminished invasive behavior in vitro and reduced tumor growth and metastasis in vivo.
Thus, FGFR2 plays important roles in CRC progression in association with tumor cell migration, invasion and growth, and FGFR2 might be a novel therapeutic target for CRC.
In one autopsy case, the K-sam protein was detected only focally in the primary tumor, whereas markedly increased staining for the K-sam product was detected diffusely in the metastasized tumor in the lymph node and liver.