Document Type

Article

Abstract

We had previously reported that trivalent arsenic (As3+), a well-known environmental carcinogen, induces phosphorylation of several putative Akt substrates. In the present report, we characterized one of these substrates by immunoprecipitation and proteomics analysis. The results indicate that a cytoskeleton remodeling protein, filamin A, with a molecular weight around 280 kDa, is phosphorylated by Akt in HEK-293 cells treated with As3+, which was also confirmed in human bronchial epithelial cell line, BEAS-2B cells. Additional biochemical and biological studies revealed that serine 2152 (S2152) of filamin A is phosphorylated by activated Akt in the cells treated with As3+. To further confirm the importance of Akt-dependent filamin A S2152 phosphorylation in As3+-induced cell migration, we over-expressed either wild type filamin A or the mutated filamin A in which the S2152 was substituted with alanine (S2152A). The capability of cell migration was reduced significantly in the cells expressing the mutated filamin A (S2152A). Clinically, we found that increased expression of filamin A predicts poorer overall survival of the lung cancer patients with adenocarcinoma. Thus, these data suggest that Akt dependent filamin A phosphorylation is one of the key events in mediating As3+-induced carcinogenesis. Antagonizing Akt signaling can ameliorate As3+-induced filamin A phosphorylation and cell migration, which may serve as a molecular targeting strategy for malignancies associated with environmental As3+ exposure.

Disciplines

Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences

Comments

NOTICE IN COMPLIANCE WITH PUBLISHER POLICY: This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons BY-NC (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any non-commercial medium provided that the original work is properly attributed.

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