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Taxane chemotherapy leads to breast cancer dormancy escape by stromal injury mediated IL-6/MAP2K signaling

Ganesan, R.; Bhasin, S. S.; Krishnan, U.; Thomas, B. E.; Cheemarla, N. R.; Bhasin, M.; Sukhatme, V. P.

2022-07-11 cancer biology
10.1101/2022.07.10.499472 bioRxiv
Show abstract

A major cause of cancer recurrence following chemotherapy is cancer dormancy escape. Taxane-based chemotherapy is standard of care in breast cancer treatment aimed at killing proliferating cancer cells. Here, we demonstrate that docetaxel injures stromal cells, which release protumor cytokines, IL-6 and G-CSF, that in turn invoke dormant cancer outgrowth both in vitro and in vivo. Single-cell transcriptomics shows a reprogramming of awakened cancer cells including several survival cues such as stemness, chemoresistance, as well as an altered tumor microenvironment with augmented pro-tumor immune signaling. IL-6 plays a role in cancer cell proliferation, whereas G-CSF mediates tumor immunosuppression. Pathways and differential expression analyses confirmed MEK as the key regulatory molecule in cancer cell outgrowth and survival. Antibody targeting of protumor cytokines (IL-6, G-CSF) or inhibition of cytokine signaling via MEK/ERK pathway using selumetinib prior to docetaxel treatment prevented cancer dormancy outgrowth suggesting a novel therapeutic strategy to prevent cancer recurrence.

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