c-myc Promoter-binding protein 1 (MBP-1) regulates prostate cancer cell growth by inhibiting MAPK pathway

Prostate cancer is the most common and invasive type of cancer among American men, and the second leading cause of cancer-elated deaths in the United States. Unfortunately, an effective therapeutic regimen is still lacking for advance stages of the disease. Recently, MEK5 has been shown to overexpress in prostate cancer and is associated with poor survival outcome. MEK5 exists as α- and β-isoforms. MEK5α induces cell proliferation by activating its downstream molecules, whereas MEK5β expression is associated with inhibition of cell growth. We have recently shown that exogenous expression of c-myc promoter-binding protein 1 (MBP-1) induces prostate cancer cell death (Ghosh, A. K., Steele, R., and Ray, R. B. (2005) Cancer Res. 65, 718-721). In this study, we have investigated whether inhibition of MEK5 signaling pathway can modulate prostate cancer cell growth. MBP-1 is a general transcriptional repressor and modulates a number of cellular genes. Therefore, we examined the endogenous expression status of MEK5 in androgen-independent prostate cancer cells upon recombinant adenovirus-mediated introduction of MBP-1. Our results demonstrated that MBP-1 expression reduced the endogenous MEK5α protein level; on the other hand, MEK5β expression was enhanced significantly. Transduction of MBP-1 modulates the downstream signaling molecules of MEK5, such as activation of the cyclin D1 promoter and MEF2C transcriptional activities in androgen-independent prostate cancer cells. MBP-1 expression also modulates MEK5-mediated activation of NF-κB. Further analysis suggested that MBP-1 physically associates with MEK5 and induces proteasome-mediated degradation of the MEK5 protein, which appears to occur independently of ubiquitination. Together, our results suggested a novel role of MBP-1 for suppression of prostate cancer cell growth by regulating the MEK5-mediated signaling pathway.