Depression promotes prostate cancer invasion and metastasis via a sympathetic-cAMP-FAK signaling pathway

Oncogene. 2018 May;37(22):2953-2966. doi: 10.1038/s41388-018-0177-4. Epub 2018 Mar 8.

Abstract

Depression drives cancer progression and induces poor clinical outcome. However, the mechanisms underlying depression and cancer outcomes are unclear. In this work, we investigated 98 prostate cancer patients and found that patients with high score of psychological depression were correlated with tumor invasion and metastasis. We found focal adhesion kinase (FAK) was increased in cancer patients with metastatic features and high score of depression. FAK knockdown completely blocked depression-promoted tumor invasion in orthotopic transplantation tumors. In Hi-myc mice and a murine model of depression, sympathetic activation was detected in the prostate tissue. Further we showed that FAK activation was dependent on a cAMP-PKA signaling pathway. Our results demonstrated that the activation of a sympathetic-FAK signaling pathway in prostate cancer patients with high degrees of depression facilitates tumor invasion. We suggest that blocking β2AR with propranolol or inhibiting FAK activation with PF562 271 may be novel strategies for depressed patients with invasive prostate cancer.

Publication types

  • Research Support, N.I.H., Intramural
  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Animals
  • Cell Line, Tumor
  • Cyclic AMP / metabolism*
  • Depression / complications*
  • Depression / genetics
  • Depression / metabolism
  • Focal Adhesion Kinase 1 / genetics*
  • Focal Adhesion Kinase 1 / metabolism*
  • Gene Expression Regulation, Neoplastic
  • Gene Knockdown Techniques
  • Humans
  • Male
  • Mice
  • Neoplasm Grading
  • Neoplasm Invasiveness
  • Neoplasm Metastasis
  • Neoplasm Transplantation
  • Phosphorylation
  • Prostatic Neoplasms / metabolism
  • Prostatic Neoplasms / pathology*
  • Prostatic Neoplasms / psychology
  • Signal Transduction
  • Up-Regulation*

Substances

  • Cyclic AMP
  • Focal Adhesion Kinase 1
  • PTK2 protein, human