Synergistic Signaling of KRAS and Thyroid Hormone Receptor β Mutants Promotes Undifferentiated Thyroid Cancer through MYC Up-Regulation

Abstract

Undifferentiated thyroid carcinoma is one of the most aggressive human cancers with frequent RAS mutations. How mutations of the RAS gene contribute to undifferentiated thyroid cancer remains largely unknown. Mice harboring a potent dominant negative mutant thyroid hormone receptor β, TRβPV (ThrbPV/PV), spontaneously develop well-differentiated follicular thyroid cancer similar to human cancer. We genetically targeted the KrasG12D mutation to thyroid epithelial cells of ThrbPV/PV mice to understand how KrasG12D mutation could induce undifferentiated thyroid cancer in ThrbPV/PVKrasG12D mice. ThrbPV/PVKrasG12D mice exhibited poorer survival due to more aggressive thyroid tumors with capsular invasion, vascular invasion, and distant metastases to the lung occurring at an earlier age and at a higher frequency than ThrbPV/PV mice did. Importantly, ThrbPV/PVKrasG12D mice developed frequent anaplastic foci with complete loss of normal thyroid follicular morphology. Within the anaplastic foci, the thyroid-specific transcription factor paired box gene 8 (PAX8) expression was virtually lost and the loss of PAX8 expression was inversely correlated with elevated MYC expression. Consistently, co-expression of KRASG12D with TRβPV upregulated MYC levels in rat thyroid pccl3 cells, and MYC acted to enhance the TRβPV-mediated repression of the Pax8 promoter activity of a distant upstream enhancer, critical for thyroid-specific Pax8 expression. Our findings indicated that synergistic signaling of KRASG12D and TRβPV led to increased MYC expression. Upregulated MYC contributes to the initiation of undifferentiated thyroid cancer, in part, through enhancing TRβPV-mediated repression of the Pax8 expression. Thus, MYC might serve as a potential target for therapeutic intervention.