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J. Biol. Chem., Vol. 282, Issue 19, 14048-14055, May 11, 2007

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Oncogenic KRAS Activates Hedgehog Signaling Pathway in Pancreatic Cancer Cells^*

From the Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology, Sealy Center for Cancer Cell Biology, School of Medicine, The University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston, Texas 77555

Hedgehog (Hh) signaling is deregulated in multiple human cancers including pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDA). Because KRAS mutation represents one of the earliest genetic alterations and occurs almost universally in PDA, we hypothesized that oncogenic KRAS promotes pancreatic tumorigenesis in part through activation of the Hh pathway. Here, we report that oncogenic KRAS activates hedgehog signaling in PDA cells, utilizing a downstream effector pathway mediated by RAF/MEK/MAPK but not phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3K)/AKT. Oncogenic KRAS transformation of human pancreatic ductal epithelial cells increases GLI transcriptional activity, an effect that is inhibited by the MEK-specific inhibitors U0126 and PD98059, but not by the PI3K-specific inhibitor wortmannin. Inactivation of KRAS activity by a small interfering RNA specific for oncogenic KRAS inhibits GLI activity and GLI1 expression in PDA cell lines with activating KRAS mutation; the MEK inhibitors U0126 and PD98059 elicit a similar response. In addition, expression of the constitutively active form of BRAF^E600, but not myr-AKT, blocks the inhibitory effects of KRAS knockdown on Hh signaling. Finally, suppressing GLI activity leads to a selective attenuation of the oncogenic transformation activity of mutant KRAS-expressing PDA cells. These results demonstrate that oncogenic KRAS, through RAF/MEK/MAPK signaling, is directly involved in the activation of the hedgehog pathway in PDA cells and that collaboration between these two signaling pathways may play an important role in PDA progression.

Received for publication, December 4, 2006 , and in revised form, March 12, 2007.

^* The costs of publication of this article were defrayed in part by the payment of page charges. This article must therefore be hereby marked "advertisement" in accordance with 18 U.S.C. Section 1734 solely to indicate this fact.

The on-line version of this article (available at http://www.jbc.org) contains supplemental Figs. S1 and S2.

¹ Supported by National Institutes of Health Grant GM066170. To whom correspondence should be addressed: Dept. of Pharmacology and Toxicology, The University of Texas Medical Branch, 301 University Blvd., Galveston, TX 77555-1031. Tel.: 409-772-9656; Fax: 409-772-9642; E-mail: xcheng{at}utmb.edu.

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