Abstract 160: IKKα interacts with DARPP-32 to promote lung adenocarcinoma growth

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Abstract Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer-related death in the U.S. and worldwide. Non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) represents 80-85% of all lung cancer diagnoses, most of which present as advanced disease with poor prognoses. Despite existing treatment options, the overall 5-year survival rate of lung cancer patients is about 17%. Many patients are diagnosed with advanced stage disease that frequently progresses after developing resistance to therapy. Therefore, a better understanding of the molecular mechanisms that control NSCLC progression is necessary to develop new therapies to improve the prognoses of patients. We recently demonstrated that dopamine and cyclic AMP-regulated phosphoprotein, Mr 32000 (DARPP-32), and its truncated splice variant, t-DARPP, promote NSCLC growth using functional studies, orthotopic mouse models, and patient-derived specimens. Specifically, we previously reported that DARPP-32 isoforms promote NSCLC cell migration through activation of non-canonical NF-κB2 signaling by establishing a direct physical interaction with inhibitory kappa B kinase-alpha (IKKα). Therefore, we first sought to determine whether IKKα directly phosphorylates DARPP-32. Indeed, we observed that kinase active IKKα protein phosphorylates DARPP-32 protein at the Thr-34 position using in vitro kinase assays. Given that phosphorylated DARPP-32 acts as a potent inhibitor of protein phosphatase 1 (PP1), we assessed PP1 activity upon transient overexpression of IKKα in DARPP-32-overexpressed NSCLC cells. Our findings suggest phosphorylation of DARPP-32 by IKKα results in decreased PP1-mediated phosphatase activity. This DARPP-32-mediated inhibition of PP1 was not observed in NSCLC cells stably overexpressing a form of DARPP-32 that cannot phosphorylated at the Thr-34 residue (via T34A mutation), suggesting IKKα protein phosphorylates DARPP-32 at the Thr-34 position to stimulate DARPP-32-mediated inhibition of PP1 activity. Correspondingly, we have observed increased phosphorylation of ERK protein, a kinase regulated by PP1, upon pharmacological inhibition of PP1 as well as following overexpression of IKKα protein. Ablation of IKKα via lentiviral transduction reduces NSCLC cell growth in soft-agar colony formation assays. Furthermore, using an orthotopic human NSCLC cell line-derived xenograft mouse model, we have shown that depletion of IKKα reduces tumor growth. Taken together, our findings suggest that IKKα contributes to NSCLC growth by interacting with DARPP-32 to stimulate oncogenic kinase activity through the inhibition of PP1 phosphatase activity. Citation Format: Sk. Kayum Alam, Li Wang, Zhu Zhu, Luke H. Hoeppner. IKKα interacts with DARPP-32 to promote lung adenocarcinoma growth [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2022; 2022 Apr 8-13. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2022;82(12_Suppl):Abstract nr 160.