Pathway: Signaling by high-kinase activity BRAF mutants
Reactions in pathway: Signaling by high-kinase activity BRAF mutants :
Signaling by high-kinase activity BRAF mutants
BRAF is mutated in about 8% of human cancers, with high prevalence in hairy cell leukemia, melanoma, papillary thyroid and ovarian carcinomas, colorectal cancer and a variety of other tumors (Davies et al, 2002; reviewed in Samatar and Poulikakos, 2014). Most BRAF mutations fall in the activation loop region of the kinase or the adjacent glycine rich region. These mutations promote increased kinase activity either by mimicking the effects of activation loop phosphorylations or by promoting the active conformation of the enzyme (Davies et al, 2002; Wan et al, 2004). Roughly 90% of BRAF mutants are represented by the single missense mutation BRAF V600E (Davies et al, 2002; Wan et al, 2004). Other highly active kinase mutants of BRAF include BRAF G469A and BRAF T599dup. G469 is in the glycine rich region of the kinase domain which plays a role in orienting ATP for catalysis, while T599 is one of the two conserved regulatory phosphorylation sites of the activation loop. Each of these mutants has highly enhanced basal kinase activities, phosphorylates MEK and ERK in vitro and in vivo and is transforming when expressed in vivo (Davies et al, 2002; Wan et al, 2004; Eisenhardt et al, 2011). Further functional characterization shows that these highly active mutants are largely resistant to disruption of the BRAF dimer interface, suggesting that they are able to act as monomers (Roring et al, 2012; Brummer et al, 2006; Freeman et al, 2013; Garnett et al, 2005). Activating BRAF mutations occur for the most part independently of RAS activating mutations, and RAS activity levels are generally low in BRAF mutant cells. Moreover, the kinase activity of these mutants is only slightly elevated by coexpression of G12V KRAS, and biological activity of the highly active BRAF mutants is independent of RAS binding (Brummer et al, 2006; Wan et al, 2004; Davies et al, 2002; Garnett et al, 2005). Although BRAF V600E is inhibited by RAF inhibitors such as vemurafenib, resistance frequently develops, in some cases mediated by the expression of a splice variant that lacks the RAS binding domain and shows elevated dimerization compared to the full length V600E mutant (Poulikakos et al, 2011; reviewed in Lito et al, 2013).
Signaling processes are central to human physiology (e.g., Pires-da Silva & Sommer 2003), and their disruption by either germ-line and somatic mutation can lead to serious disease. Here, the molecular consequences of mutations affecting visual signal transduction and signaling by diverse growth factors are annotated.
Biological processes are captured in Reactome by identifying the molecules (DNA, RNA, protein, small molecules) involved in them and describing the details of their interactions. From this molecular viewpoint, human disease pathways have three mechanistic causes: the inclusion of microbially-expressed proteins, altered functions of human proteins, or changed expression levels of otherwise functionally normal human proteins.
The first group encompasses the infectious diseases such as influenza, tuberculosis and HIV infection. The second group involves human proteins modified either by a mutation or by an abnormal post-translational event that produces an aberrant protein with a novel function. Examples include somatic mutations of EGFR and FGFR (epidermal and fibroblast growth factor receptor) genes, which encode constitutively active receptors that signal even in the absence of their ligands, or the somatic mutation of IDH1 (isocitrate dehydrogenase 1) that leads to an enzyme active on 2-oxoglutarate rather than isocitrate, or the abnormal protein aggregations of amyloidosis which lead to diseases such as Alzheimer's.
Infectious diseases are represented in Reactome as microbial-human protein interactions and the consequent events. The existence of variant proteins and their association with disease-specific biological processes is represented by inclusion of the modified protein in a new or variant reaction, an extension to the 'normal' pathway. Diseases which result from proteins performing their normal functions but at abnormal rates can also be captured, though less directly. Many mutant alleles encode proteins that retain their normal functions but have abnormal stabilities or catalytic efficiencies, leading to normal reactions that proceed to abnormal extents. The phenotypes of such diseases can be revealed when pathway annotations are combined with expression or rate data from other sources.
Depending on the biological pathway/process immediately affected by disease-causing gene variants, non-infectious diseases in Reactome are organized into diseases of signal transduction by growth factore receptors and second messengers, diseases of mitotic cell cycle, diseases of cellular response to stress, diseases of programmed cell death, diseases of DNA repair, disorders of transmembrane transporters, diseases of metabolism, diseases of immune system, diseases of neuronal system, disorders of developmental biology, disorders of extracellular matrix organization, and diseases of hemostatis.
