Metastatic melanoma is the deadliest of all skin cancers. Despite progress in diagnostics and treatment of melanoma, the prognosis for metastatic patients remains poor. We previously showed that Membrane-type 1 Matrix Metalloproteinase (MT1-MMP) is one of the drivers of melanoma metastasis. Classically, MT1-MMP regulates a verity of cellular functions including cell-to-cell interaction and cell-to-matrix communication. Recently, MT1-MMP has been found to also modulate gene expression. To specifically assess MT1-MMP dependent gene regulation in melanoma, microarray gene expression analysis was performed in a melanoma cell line whose metastatic properties depend on the activity of MT1-MMP. We identified the tumor suppressor gene SPRY4 as a new transcriptional target of MT1-MMP that is negatively regulated by the protease. Knockdown of MT1-MMP enhances SPRY4 expression at the mRNA and protein level. SPRY4 expression inversely correlates with that of MT1-MMP in melanoma samples and importantly, correlates with melanoma patient survival. SPRY4 modulates MT1-MMP dependent cell migration such that inhibition of SPRY4 rescues cell migration that has been impaired by MT1-MMP knock down. MT1-MMP decreases SPRY4 in part through an MMP2/RAC1 axis we previously show promotes cell motility downstream of MT1-MMP. These results identify the tumor suppressor SPRY4 as a novel molecular effector of MT1-MMP affecting melanoma cell motility.
Keywords: SPRY4; cell migration; matrix metalloproteinase (MMP); melanoma.