Autophagy inhibition specifically promotes epithelial-mesenchymal transition and invasion in RAS-mutated cancer cells

Macroautophagy/autophagy inhibition is a novel anticancer therapeutic strategy, especially for tumors driven by mutant RAS. Here, we demonstrate that autophagy inhibition in RAS-mutated cells induces epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT), which is associated with enhanced tumor invasion. This is at least partially achieved by triggering the NFKB/NF-kappa B pathway via SQSTM1/p62. Knockdown of ATG3 or ATG5 increases oncogenic RAS-induced expression of ZEB1 and SNAI2/Snail2, and activates NFKB activity. Depletion of SQSTM1 abolishes the activation of the NFKB pathway induced by autophagy inhibition in RAS-mutated cells. NFKB pathway inhibition by depletion of RELA/p65 blocks this EMT induction. Finally, accumulation of SQSTM1 protein correlates with loss of CDH1/E-cadherin expression in pancreatic adenocarcinoma. Together, we suggest that combining autophagy inhibition with NFKB inhibitors may therefore be necessary to treat RAS-mutated cancer.