Integrated Quantitative Analysis of the Phosphoproteome and Transcriptome in Tamoxifen-resistant Breast Cancer*
Quantitative phosphoproteome and transcriptome analysisof ligand-stimulated MCF-7 human breast cancer cells wasperformed to understand the mechanisms of tamoxifen resistanceat a system level. Phosphoproteome data revealed thatWT cells were more enriched with phospho-proteins thantamoxifen-resistant cells after stimulation with ligands.Surprisingly, decreased phosphorylation after ligand perturbationwas more common than increased phosphorylation.In particular, 17?-estradiol induced down-regulation inWT cells at a very high rate. 17?-Estradiol and the ErbBligand heregulin induced almost equal numbers of up-regulatedphospho-proteins in WT cells. Pathway and motifactivity analyses using transcriptome data additionallysuggested that deregulated activation of GSK3? (glycogensynthasekinase 3?) and MAPK1/3 signaling might be associatedwith altered activation of cAMP-responsive elementbindingprotein and AP-1 transcription factors intamoxifen-resistant cells, and this hypothesis was validatedby reporter assays. An examination of clinical samples revealedthat inhibitory phosphorylation of GSK3? at serine 9was significantly lower in tamoxifen-treated breast cancerpatients that eventually had relapses, implying that activationof GSK3? may be associated with the tamoxifen-resistantphenotype. Thus, the combined phosphoproteomeand transcriptome data set analyses revealed distinct signal