Abstract
Adrenocortical carcinoma (ACC) is a rare and aggressive malignancy with limited therapeutic options. The lack of mouse models that recapitulate the genetics of ACC has hampered progress in the field. We analyzed The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) dataset for ACC and found that patients harboring alterations in both p53/Rb and Wnt/β-catenin signaling pathways show a worse prognosis compared with patients that harbored alterations in only one. To model this, we utilized the Cyp11b2(AS)Cre mouse line to generate mice with adrenocortical-specific Wnt/β-catenin activation, Trp53 deletion, or the combination of both. Mice with targeted Wnt/β-catenin activation or Trp53 deletion showed no changes associated with tumor formation. In contrast, alterations in both pathways led to ACC with pulmonary metastases. Similar to ACCs in humans, these tumors produced increased levels of corticosterone and aldosterone and showed a high proliferation index. Gene expression analysis revealed that mouse tumors exhibited downregulation of Star and Cyp11b1 and upregulation of Ezh2, similar to ACC patients with a poor prognosis. Altogether, these data show that altering both Wnt/β-catenin and p53/Rb signaling is sufficient to drive ACC in mouse. This autochthonous model of ACC represents a new tool to investigate the biology of ACC and to identify new treatment strategies.
Highlights
These authors contributed : Kleiton Silva Borges, Emanuele Pignatti
To gain further insight into the genetic changes that arise in human Adrenocortical carcinoma (ACC), we reanalyzed genomic data from the ACC The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) dataset using cBioPortal [10, 24]
This study describes an autochthonous mouse model of ACC that accurately recapitulates key cellular and molecular features of human ACC
Summary
Despite the high frequency of mutations in Wnt/ β-catenin pathway genes in human ACC, such mutations alone are insufficient to induce malignant transformation in mouse models, they have been linked to the development of benign adrenocortical tumors [12,13,14]. We demonstrate that the combination of adrenal-specific β-catenin GOF and p53 deletion in mice resulted in metastatic ACC that produce corticosteroids in excess, a key feature of human ACC This mouse strain extends our understanding of the spectrum of molecular causes of this disease and provides an autochthonous model to investigate ACC biology and to test new therapeutic targets
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