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Targeting FGF19 inhibits tumor growth in colon cancer xenograft and FGF19 transgenic hepatocellular carcinoma models

Oncogene volume 27, pages 85–97 (2008)Cite this article

Abstract

Although fibroblast growth factor 19 (FGF19) can promote liver carcinogenesis in mice its involvement in human cancer is not well characterized. Here we report that FGF19 and its cognate receptor FGF receptor 4 (FGFR4) are coexpressed in primary human liver, lung and colon tumors and in a subset of human colon cancer cell lines. To test the importance of FGF19 for tumor growth, we developed an anti-FGF19 monoclonal antibody that selectively blocks the interaction of FGF19 with FGFR4. This antibody abolished FGF19-mediated activity in vitro and inhibited growth of colon tumor xenografts in vivo and effectively prevented hepatocellular carcinomas in FGF19 transgenic mice. The efficacy of the antibody in these models was linked to inhibition of FGF19-dependent activation of FGFR4, FRS2, ERK and β-catenin. These findings suggest that the inactivation of FGF19 could be beneficial for the treatment of colon cancer, liver cancer and other malignancies involving interaction of FGF19 and FGFR4.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Chris Wiesmann for structural modeling; Robin E Taylor and Julio Ramirez for paraffin embedding and sectioning; Sheila Bheddah for immunohistochemistry assistance; and Hartmut Koeppen, Paul Polakis, and Vishva Dixit for helpful discussions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Molecular Oncology, Genentech Inc., South San Francisco, CA, USA

    L R Desnoyers, A D'Souza, J Qing & A Ashkenazi

  2. Department of Pathology, Genentech Inc., South San Francisco, CA, USA

    R Pai, R E Ferrando, K Hötzel & D M French

  3. Department of Biomedical Imaging, Genentech Inc., South San Francisco, CA, USA

    T Le, J Ross & R Carano

  4. Department of Protein Chemistry, Genentech Inc., South San Francisco, CA, USA

    I Mohtashemi

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  1. L R Desnoyers
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Correspondence to D M French.

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Supplementary Information accompanies the paper on the Oncogene website (http://www.nature.com/onc).

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Desnoyers, L., Pai, R., Ferrando, R. et al. Targeting FGF19 inhibits tumor growth in colon cancer xenograft and FGF19 transgenic hepatocellular carcinoma models. Oncogene 27, 85–97 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.onc.1210623

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.onc.1210623

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