Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor Activation in Glioblastoma through Novel Missense Mutations in the Extracellular Domain

Abstract

Background

Protein tyrosine kinases are important regulators of cellular homeostasis with tightly controlled catalytic activity. Mutations in kinase-encoding genes can relieve the autoinhibitory constraints on kinase activity, can promote malignant transformation, and appear to be a major determinant of response to kinase inhibitor therapy. Missense mutations in the EGFR kinase domain, for example, have recently been identified in patients who showed clinical responses to EGFR kinase inhibitor therapy.

Methods and Findings

Encouraged by the promising clinical activity of epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) kinase inhibitors in treating glioblastoma in humans, we have sequenced the complete EGFR coding sequence in glioma tumor samples and cell lines. We identified novel missense mutations in the extracellular domain of EGFR in 13.6% (18/132) of glioblastomas and 12.5% (1/8) of glioblastoma cell lines. These EGFR mutations were associated with increased EGFR gene dosage and conferred anchorage-independent growth and tumorigenicity to NIH-3T3 cells. Cells transformed by expression of these EGFR mutants were sensitive to small-molecule EGFR kinase inhibitors.

Conclusions

Our results suggest extracellular missense mutations as a novel mechanism for oncogenic EGFR activation and may help identify patients who can benefit from EGFR kinase inhibitors for treatment of glioblastoma.

Abstract

Ingo Mellinghoff and colleagues sequenced the EGFR gene in glioblastoma samples and cell lines and identified missense mutations in the extracellular domain that suggest a new mechanism for EGFR activation.

Editors' Summary

Background.

Normally, cell division (which produces new cells) and cell death are finely balanced to keep the tissues and organs of the human body in working order. But sometimes, cells acquire changes (mutations) in their genetic material that allow them to divide uncontrollably to form cancers—life-threatening, disorganized masses of cells. Cancer treatments often involve drugs that kill rapidly dividing cells but, although these hit cancer cells hardest, they also damage some normal tissues. Now, though, some of the specific changes that allow cancer cells to divide uncontrollably have been identified and drugs that attack only these abnormal cells are being developed. One of these—erlotinib—inhibits the activity of epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR), a “receptor tyrosine kinase” that sits in the cell membrane. The interaction of epidermal growth factor (EGF)—a messenger protein—with the extracellular portion (or domain) of EGFR activates its intracellular part (a kinase enzyme). This adds phosphate groups to tyrosine (an amino acid) in proteins that form part of a signaling cascade that tells cells to divide. Cancer cells often have alterations in EGFR signaling. Some have extra copies of the EGFR gene ( EGFR amplification); others make a short version of EGFR that is always active because it lacks the extracellular domain that binds EGF; yet others contain EGFR that is permanently active because of mutations in its kinase domain.

Why Was This Study Done?

Erlotinib can help only patients whose tumor growth is dependent on EGFR signaling. To identify these patients it is necessary to have a detailed catalog of the mutations that occur in EGFR in tumors and to know which mutations drive uncontrolled cell growth. In this study, the researchers have catalogued and characterized the mutations in EGFR that occur in glioblastoma, a deadly type of brain tumor. The researchers chose this tumor type for their study because EGFR amplification and loss of the extracellular domain of EGFR are both common in glioblastomas and because about one in five patients with glioblastoma responds well to EGFR kinase inhibitors.

What Did the Researchers Do and Find?

The researchers sequenced the whole coding sequence of the EGFR gene in more than 100 glioblastomas. Nearly 15% of the tumors contained missense mutations—changes that alter the amino acid sequence of EGFR. Only one tumor had a mutation in the EGFR kinase domain; the rest had mutations in its extracellular domain. To test whether these newly identified mutations might contribute to cancer development (oncogenesis), the researchers introduced mutated or normal EGFR genes into nontumorigenic mouse cells. Only the cells that contained the mutated EGFR genes formed tumors when injected into mice, indicating that the nontumorigenic cells had been “transformed” into cancer cells by the mutated EGFR genes. Finally, the researchers showed that EGFR containing the extracellular missense mutations had kinase activity in the absence of EGF when expressed in human and mouse cells, and that the growth of cells transformed by expression of the mutated genes was sensitive to erlotinib.

What Do These Findings Mean?

These findings identify missense mutations in the extracellular domain of EGFR as a new way to oncogenically activate this protein. Until now researchers have concentrated on the kinase domain of this and other receptor tyrosine kinases in their search for oncogenic mutations, but the results of this study suggest that future searches should be much broader. The distribution of EGFR missense mutations in glioblastoma contrasts with that in lung cancer, in which alterations in EGFR signaling are also implicated in cancer development but all the oncogenic mutations are in the kinase domain. Fortunately, EGFR kinase inhibitors like erlotinib have broad activity: They inhibit the growth of cells transformed by the expression of EGFR containing extracellular domain mutations or kinase mutations, or by the expression of the short EGFR variant. This bodes well for the use of these drugs in patients with glioblastoma. However, before these inhibitors become a standard part of cancer treatments, sensitive techniques need to be developed to analyze tumors for these mutations so that the patients who will benefit from these targeted therapies can be identified.

Additional Information.

Please access these Web sites via the online version of this summary at http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.0030485.

• MedlinePlus encyclopedia entries on cancer and on brain tumors

• US National Cancer Institute information for patients and professionals on brain tumors

• Wikipedia pages on protein kinases, epidermal growth factor receptor, and erlotinib (note that Wikipedia is a free online encyclopedia that anyone can edit)