Salt-Inducible Kinase 2 Couples Ovarian Cancer Cell Metabolism with Survival at the Adipocyte-Rich Metastatic Niche

  • Cancer Cell. 2016 Aug 8;30(2):273-289. doi: 10.1016/j.ccell.2016.06.020.
Fabrizio Miranda  1 ,  David Mannion  1 ,  Shujuan Liu  1 ,  Yiyan Zheng  1 ,  Lingegowda S Mangala  2 ,  Clara Redondo  3 ,  Sandra Herrero-Gonzalez  1 ,  Ruoyan Xu  1 ,  Charlotte Taylor  1 ,  Donatien Fotso Chedom  1 ,  Eli M Carrami  1 ,  Ashwag Albukhari  4 ,  Dahai Jiang  2 ,  Sunila Pradeep  5 ,  Cristian Rodriguez-Aguayo  6 ,  Gabriel Lopez-Berestein  6 ,  Eidarus Salah  7 ,  Kamal R Abdul Azeez  7 ,  Jonathan M Elkins  7 ,  Leticia Campo  8 ,  Kevin A Myers  8 ,  Daniel Klotz  1 ,  Serena Bivona  1 ,  Sunanda Dhar  9 ,  Robert C Bast Jr  10 ,  Hideyuki Saya  11 ,  Hwan Geun Choi  12 ,  Nathanael S Gray  12 ,  Roman Fischer  13 ,  Benedikt M Kessler  13 ,  Christopher Yau  14 ,  Anil K Sood  2 ,  Takeshi Motohara  15 ,  Stefan Knapp  16 ,  Ahmed Ashour Ahmed  17
Affiliations
  • 1. Ovarian Cancer Cell Laboratory, Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine, University of Oxford, Headington, Oxford OX3 9DS, UK; Nuffield Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, University of Oxford, Women's Centre, John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford OX3 9DU, UK.
  • 2. Gynecologic Oncology, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, 1515 Holcombe Boulevard, Houston, TX 77030, USA; Center for RNAi and Non-Coding RNA, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, 1515 Holcombe Boulevard, Houston, TX 77030, USA.
  • 3. Ovarian Cancer Cell Laboratory, Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine, University of Oxford, Headington, Oxford OX3 9DS, UK; Nuffield Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, University of Oxford, Women's Centre, John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford OX3 9DU, UK; Structural Genomics Consortium, Nuffield Department of Medicine, University of Oxford, Old Road Campus Research Building, Oxford OX3 7DQ, UK.
  • 4. Ovarian Cancer Cell Laboratory, Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine, University of Oxford, Headington, Oxford OX3 9DS, UK; Nuffield Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, University of Oxford, Women's Centre, John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford OX3 9DU, UK; Biochemistry Department, Faculty of Science, King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah 21551, Saudi Arabia.
  • 5. Gynecologic Oncology, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, 1515 Holcombe Boulevard, Houston, TX 77030, USA.
  • 6. Center for RNAi and Non-Coding RNA, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, 1515 Holcombe Boulevard, Houston, TX 77030, USA; Department of Experimental Therapeutics, University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX 77030, USA.
  • 7. Structural Genomics Consortium, Nuffield Department of Medicine, University of Oxford, Old Road Campus Research Building, Oxford OX3 7DQ, UK.
  • 8. Department of Oncology, University of Oxford, Old Road Campus Research Building, Roosevelt Drive, Oxford OX3 7DQ, UK.
  • 9. Department of Histopathology, Oxford University Hospitals, Oxford OX3 9DU, UK.
  • 10. Department of Experimental Therapeutics, University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX 77030, USA.
  • 11. Division of Gene Regulation, Institute for Advanced Medical Research, School of Medicine, Keio University, Tokyo 160-8582, Japan.
  • 12. Department of Biological Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115, USA; Department of Cancer Biology, Dana Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, MA 02215, USA.
  • 13. Nuffield Department of Medicine, Target Discovery Institute, University of Oxford, Oxford OX3 7FZ, UK.
  • 14. Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics, NIHR Biomedical Research Centre, Roosevelt Drive, Oxford OX3 7BN, UK; Department of Statistics, University of Oxford, 1 South Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3TG, UK.
  • 15. Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Faculty of Life Sciences, Kumamoto University, Kumamoto 860-8556, Japan.
  • 16. Structural Genomics Consortium, Nuffield Department of Medicine, University of Oxford, Old Road Campus Research Building, Oxford OX3 7DQ, UK; Nuffield Department of Medicine, Target Discovery Institute, University of Oxford, Oxford OX3 7FZ, UK; Goethe-University Frankfurt, Institute for Pharmaceutical Chemistry and Buchmann Institute for Life Sciences, Riedberg Campus, 60438 Frankfurt am Main, Germany.
  • 17. Ovarian Cancer Cell Laboratory, Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine, University of Oxford, Headington, Oxford OX3 9DS, UK; Nuffield Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, University of Oxford, Women's Centre, John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford OX3 9DU, UK. Electronic address: [email protected].
Abstract

The adipocyte-rich microenvironment forms a niche for Ovarian Cancer metastasis, but the mechanisms driving this process are incompletely understood. Here we show that salt-inducible kinase 2 (SIK2) is overexpressed in adipocyte-rich metastatic deposits compared with ovarian primary lesions. Overexpression of SIK2 in Ovarian Cancer cells promotes abdominal metastasis while SIK2 depletion prevents metastasis in vivo. Importantly, adipocytes induce calcium-dependent activation and autophosphorylation of SIK2. Activated SIK2 plays a dual role in augmenting AMPK-induced phosphorylation of Acetyl-CoA Carboxylase and in activating the PI3K/Akt pathway through p85α-S154 phosphorylation. These findings identify SIK2 at the apex of the adipocyte-induced signaling cascades in Cancer cells and make a compelling case for targeting SIK2 for therapy in Ovarian Cancer.