Stromal-MDM2 Promotes Lung Cancer Cell Invasion through Tumor–Host Feedback Signaling

Tumor-host interactions play a major role in malignancies' initiation and progression. We have reported in the past that tumor cells attenuate genotoxic stress-induced p53 activation in neighboring stromal cells. Herein, we aim to further elucidate cancer cells' impact on signaling within lung cancer stroma. Primary cancer-associated fibroblasts were grown from resected human lung tumors. Lung cancer lines as well as fresh cultures of resected human lung cancers were used to produce conditioned medium (CM) or cocultured with stromal cells. Invasiveness of cancer cells was evaluated by transwell assays, and <i>in vivo</i> tumor growth was tested in Athymic nude mice. We found CM of a large variety of cancer cell lines as well as <i>ex vivo</i>-cultured lung cancers to rapidly induce protein levels of stromal-MDM2. CM of nontransformed cells had no such effect. Mdm2 induction occurred through enhanced translation, was mTORC1-dependent, and correlated with activation of AKT and p70 S6 Kinase. <i>AKT</i> or <i>MDM2</i> knockdown in fibroblasts reduced the invasion of neighboring cancer cells, independently of stromal-p53. <i>MDM2</i> overexpression in fibroblasts enhanced cancer cells' invasion and growth of inoculated tumors in mice. Our results indicate that stromal-MDM2 participates in a p53-independent cancer-host feedback mechanism. Soluble cancer-originated signals induce enhanced translation of stromal-MDM2 through AKT/mTORC1 signaling, which in turn enhances the neighboring cancer cells' invasion ability. The role of these tumor-host interactions needs to be further explored. IMPLICATIONS: We uncovered a novel tumor-stroma signaling loop, which is a potentially new therapeutic target in lung cancer and possibly in additional types of cancer.