Rapamycin treatment of MDA-MB-468 breast cancer cell line and MDA-MB-468 xenografts. Homo sapiens

Mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) is a serine/threonine kinase involved in multiple intracellular signaling pathways promoting tumor growth. mTOR is aberrantly activated in a significant portion of breast cancers and is a promising target for treatment. Rapamycin and its analogues are in clinical trials for breast cancer treatment. Patterns of gene expression (metagenes) may also be used to simulate a biologic process of effects of a drug treatment. In this study, we tested the hypothesis that the gene-expression signature regulated by rapamycin could predict disease outcome for patients with breast cancer. Results: Colony formation and sulforhodamine B (IC50 75) percentile) RMI was significantly associated with longer survival (P = 0.015). On multivariate analysis, RMI (P = 0.029), tumor size (P = 0.015) and lymph node status (P = 0.01) were prognostic. In van 't Veer study, RMI was not associated with the time to develop distant metastasis (P = 0.41). In Wang dataset, RMI predicted time to disease relapse (P = 0.09). Conclusions: Rapamycin-regulated gene expression signature predicts clinical outcome in breast cancer. This supports the central role of mTOR signaling in breast cancer biology and provides further impetus to pursue mTOR-targeted therapies for breast cancer treatment. Mol Cancer. 2009 Sep 24;8(1):75. Overall design: Rapamycin treatment of MDA-MB-468 breast cancer cell line: MDA-MB-468 cell line was treated by DMSO (vehicle) and 100 nM rapamycin for 24 hours. We sought to identify differentially expressed genes. Rapamycin treatment of breast tumor xenografts: MDA-MB-468 cells were inoculated in the mammary fat pad of female nude mice. When resulting tumor volumes had reached 75-150 mm3, the mice were divided in four groups. Groups 1 and 2 received a single injection of DMSO (vehicle) or rapamycin (15 mg/kg) intraperitoneally and sacrificied 24 h later (1-day groups). Groups 3 and 4 received weekly injections of DMSO or rapamycin for 3 weeks and sacrificied 24 h after the last injection (22-day groups).