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Review
. 2019 Sep 19;2(3):539-549.
doi: 10.20517/cdr.2019.15. eCollection 2019.

Involvement of SNX1 in regulating EGFR endocytosis in a gefitinib-resistant NSCLC cell lines

Affiliations
Review

Involvement of SNX1 in regulating EGFR endocytosis in a gefitinib-resistant NSCLC cell lines

Yukio Nishimura et al. Cancer Drug Resist. .

Abstract

The drug gefitinib, a specific inhibitor of EGFR tyrosine kinase, has been shown to suppress the activation of EGFR signaling for survival and cell proliferation in non-small cell lung cancer cell lines. For many years, EGFR endocytosis has served as a model for investigating ligand-induced, receptor-mediated endocytosis. On EGF stimulation, EGFR is internalized and transported via clathrin-coated vesicles to early endosomes, and EGFR then recruits and phosphorylates signaling molecules, leading to the activation of downstream signaling such as MAPK/PI3K/AKT pathways-an important mechanism for regulating cell growth. Once delivered to the lysosomes, EGFR is degraded to terminate intracellular EGFR signaling via endocytosis; this process is known as receptor downregulation. Therefore, the endocytosis of EGFR is closely related with attenuation of intracellular EGFR signaling. Alternatively, EGFR is returned to cell surface from early endosomes for the continued signaling. Previous reports revealed that a competent EGF-induced endocytosis of EGFR followed by its rapid downregulation efficiently proceeds in the gefitinib-sensitive NSCLC cell lines. In contrast, gefitinib-resistant cell lines showed that EGFR endocytosis is impaired and the internalized EGFR is aggregated in the early endosomes, which is associated with the overexpressed sorting nexin 1 (SNX1), initially identified as a protein that interacts with EGFR. Thus dysregulated EGFR endocytosis is implicated in gefitinib resistance, as it leads to uncontrolled signal transduction. At present, the therapeutic relevance of EGFR endocytosis with regard to drug resistance in lung cancer has not been clarified. This review focused on the mechanism for EGFR endocytosis associated with SNX1 trafficking in gefitinib-resistant lung cancer cells.

Keywords: EGFR; Lung cancer; drug-resistance; endocytosis; endosomes/lysosomes; membrane recycling; sorting nexin 1.

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Conflict of interest statement

All authors declared that there are no conflicts of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
SNX1 depletion promotes efficient ligand-induced EGFR endocytosis in gefitinib-resistant NSCLC cell lines. The 3 NSCLC cell lines PC9 (A), QG56 (B) and A549 (C) cells transfected with siRNA-control (si-Ctrl) or siRNA-SNX1 (si-SNX1) were incubated with Texas red-EGF for the indicated times, and the distribution of the internalized Texas Red-EGF in the LIMPII-positive late endosomes/lysosomes was studied by confocal immunofluorescence microscopy. Superimposed images of Texas red-EGF (red) with LIMPII (green) are shown, and the merged confocal images with a yellow color are indicated by white arrows. Each cell was stained with DAPI (blue) to reveal nuclei. Quantitative analysis was carried out to determine the amounts of LIMPII-positive late endosomes/lysosomes marker that co-localized with the endocytosed Texas red-EGF following 30 min internalization in each cell transfected with si-Ctrl or si-SNX1 (D). Adapted from Nishimura et al.[41]
Figure 2
Figure 2
qRT-PCR analysis of SNX1 (A) and EGFR (B) mRNAs in 3 NSCLC cell lines transfected with siRNA-control or siRNA-SNX1. The 3 NSCLC cell lines PC9, QG56 and A549 cells transfected with si-Ctrl or si-SNX1 were stimulated with EGF for the indicated times, and then analyzed for the expression of SNX1 (A) and EGFR (B) mRNAs by qRT-PCR analysis. Adapted from Nishimura et al.[41]
Figure 3
Figure 3
Schematic diagram for SNX1-mediated endocytic trafficking of EGFR in NSCLC cells

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