Abstract 3748: p53 status as a determinant of functional duality of estrogen receptor beta in breast cancer: Therapeutic implications

Abstract

Abstract Whether estrogen receptor beta (ERβ) is a pro- or anti-oncogenic protein in breast cancer has been controversial. ERβ levels are high in ERα negative cancers including triple-negative breast cancer (TNBCs). Recent reports including the Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) show that about 80% of TNBC express mutant p53 (mut-p53) and it is the most predominant driver in these cancers. We tested the hypothesis that p53 status in breast cancer will have an important role in determining the duality of ERβ functions. We have shown that ERβ directly binds to p53 in human breast cancer cells. Using glutathione-S-transferase (GST)-pull down and co-imunoprecipitation assays, we have delineated the domains of both proteins that are required for the ERβ-p53 interaction. The DNA binding domain (DBD) along with the hinge domain of ERβ and the C-terminal regulatory domain of p53 are essential for the interaction. Using the highly sensitive proximity ligation assay (PLA), we show ERβ-p53 interaction in situ in breast cancer cells expressing either wild type (wt)- or mut-p53. ERβ and p53 antibodies validated for specificity were used. In multiple cell lines, a combination of proliferation and apoptosis assays, RNAi technology, quantitative chromatin immunoprecipitation (qChIP), and quantitative real-time PCR (qRT-PCR) showed that ERβ is pro-proliferative in the context of wt-p53, whereas it is anti-proliferative in the context of mut-p53. The results were recapitulated in isogenic MDA-MB-231 TNBC cells (generated by CRISPR technology) that differ only in the presence of wt-versus mut-p53. ERβ binds and sequesters mut-p53 from mut-p53−p73 complex leading to reactivation of tumor suppressor p73. Consistent with these data, combination of immunohistochemistry (IHC) and PLA in TNBC patient tumor tissue microarray (TMA) showed that patients with tumors expressing wt-p53/ high ERβ had worse prognosis, both in terms of overall survival (OS) and progression-free survival (PFS). On the contrary, tumors expressing mut-p53/ high ERβ were of smaller size and stage. These findings were complemented by data from our analysis of the mut-p53 subgroup of the basal-like tumors in the METABRIC dataset which showed that patients with tumors expressing higher levels of ERβ RNA (ESR2) had better prognosis. Surprisingly, 4-Hyroxy Tamoxifen (Tam) increased ERβ-mut-p53 interaction in TNBC cells and combination of doxorubicin (Adriamycin) and Tam decreased the IC50 of doxorubicin by 10 fold leading to increased apoptosis. These data have significant clinical implications in targeting ERβ and mutant p53 signaling pathways for therapeutic purposes especially in ERα negative cancers such as TNBC. Importantly, although at present Tam is not standard of care for TNBC, our data suggest a possibility for repurposing Tam therapy alone or in combination with chemotherapy to treat TNBC stratified based on p53 status. Citation Format: Gokul M. Das, Utpal K. Mukhopadhyay, Christina Adams, Nadi Wickramasekera, Rajesh Medisetty, Sanjay Bansal, Laxmi Silwal-Pandit, Anne-Lise Borresen-Dale, Austin Miller, Wendy M. Sweizig, Angela Omilian, Wiam Bshara, Alka Mukhopadhyay. p53 status as a determinant of functional duality of estrogen receptor beta in breast cancer: Therapeutic implications [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2018; 2018 Apr 14-18; Chicago, IL. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2018;78(13 Suppl):Abstract nr 3748.