Investigating the Effect of Visfatin on Erα Phosphorylation (Ser118 and Ser167) and Ere-Dependent Transcriptional Activity Publisher



Zangooei M¹ ; Nourbakhsh M² ; Ghahremani MH³ ; Meshkani R¹ ; Khedri A¹ ; Shadboorestan A³ ; Afra HS¹ ; Shahmohamadnejad S¹ ; Mirmiranpour H¹ ; Khaghani S¹ Show Affiliations
Source: EXCLI Journal Published:2018

Abstract

Obesity is associated with higher postmenopausal breast cancer incidence. Visfatin level alteration is one of the mechanisms by which obesity promotes cancer. Ligand-independent activation of estrogen receptor alpha (ERα) is also associated with carcinogenesis. The activity of ERα is modulated through phosphorylation on multiple sites by a number of protein kinases. Here we investigated the effect of visfatin as a novel adipocytokine on the phosphorylation and activity of ERα in MCF-7 breast cancer cells. We showed that exogenous administration of visfatin significantly increased the phosphorylation of ERα at serine 118 (Ser118) and 167 (Ser167) residues. Visfatin-induced Ser118 phosphorylation was diminished after treatment of cells with U0126 (MEK1/2 inhibitor). Furthermore, our results showed that visfatin-induced Ser167 phosphorylation is mediated through both MAPK and PI3K/Akt signaling pathways. Inhibition of the enzymatic activity of visfatin by FK866 had no effect on phosphorylation of ERα. We also showed that visfatin enhanced the estrogen response element (ERE)-dependent activity of ER in the presence of 17-β estradiol (E2). Additional study on T47D cells showed that visfatin also increased Ser118 and Ser167 phosphorylation of ERα and enhanced ERE-dependent activity in the presence of E2 in these cells. © 2018, Leibniz Research Centre for Working Environment and Human Factors. All rights reserved.