Abstract
Breast tumor heterogeneity is a major impediment to oncotherapy. Cancer cells undergo rapid clonal evolution, thereby acquiring significant growth and invasive advantages. The absence of specific markers of these high-risk populations precludes efficient therapeutic and diagnostic management of the disease. Given the critical function of tumor microenvironment in the oncogenic circuitry, we sought to determine the expression profile of the extracellular matrix oncoprotein, extradomain-B fibronectin (EDB-FN) in invasive breast cancer. Analyses of TCGA/GTEx databases and immunostaining of clinical samples found a significant overexpression of EDB-FN in breast tumors, which correlated with poor overall survival. Significant upregulation of EDB-FN was observed in invasive cell populations generated from relatively less invasive MCF7 and MDA-MB-468 cells by long-term TGF-β treatment and acquired chemoresistance. Treatment of the invasive cell populations with an AKT inhibitor (MK2206-HCl) reduced their invasive potential, with a concomitant decrease in their EDB-FN expression, partly through the phosphoAKT-SRp55 pathway. EDB-FN downregulation, with direct RNAi of EDB-FN or indirectly through RNAi of SRp55, also resulted in reduced motility of the invasive cell populations, validating the correlation between EDB-FN expression and invasion of breast cancer cells. These data establish EDB-FN as a promising molecular marker for non-invasive therapeutic surveillance of aggressive breast cancer.