Chemotherapy-Induced Collagen IV Drives Cancer Cell Motility through Activation of Src and Focal Adhesion Kinase

Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) is the most aggressive and deadly subtype of breast cancer, accounting for 30,000 cases annu-ally in the United States. While there are several clinical trials ongoing to identify new agents to treat TNBC, the majority of patients with TNBC are treated with anthracycline-or taxane-based chemotherapies in the neoadjuvant setting, followed by surgical resection and adjuvant chemotherapy. While many patients respond well to this approach, as many as 25% will suffer local or metastatic recurrence within 5 years. Understanding the mechan-isms that drive recurrence after chemotherapy treatment is critical to improving survival for patients with TNBC. It is well established that the extracellular matrix (ECM), which provides structure and support to tissues, is a major driver of tumor growth, local invasion, and dissemination of cancer cells to distant metastatic sites. In the present study, we show that decellularized ECM (dECM) obtained from chemotherapy-treated mice increases motility of treatment-naeuro ve breast cancer cells compared with vehicle-treated dECM. Tandem-mass-tag proteomics revealed that anthracycline-and taxane-based chemotherapies induce drug-specific changes in tumor ECM composition. The basement membrane protein collagen IV was significantly upregulated in the ECM of chemo-therapy-treated mice and patients treated with neoadjuvant che-motherapy. Collagen IV drove invasion via activation of Src and focal adhesion kinase signaling downstream of integrin alpha 1 and alpha 2, and inhibition of collagen IV-driven signaling decreased motility in chemotherapy-treated dECM. These studies provide a novel mech-anism by which chemotherapy may induce metastasis via its effects on ECM composition. Significance: Cytotoxic chemotherapy induces significant changes in the composition of tumor ECM, inducing a more invasive and aggressive phenotype in residual tumor cells following chemotherapy.

Automated summary

This study reveals that decellularized ECM obtained from chemotherapy-treated mice increases the motility of treatment-naive breast cancer cells. It also shows that collagen IV plays a role in tumor invasion and provides a novel mechanism by which chemotherapy may induce metastasis.