In the past few years several investigations have focused on the role of PI3K/AKT/mTOR pathway and its deregulations in different cancers. This study aimed to examine genetic polymorphisms of this pathway in bladder cancer (BC). In this case-control study, 235 patients with pathologically confirmed bladder cancer and 254 control subjects were examined. PIK3CA, AKT1 and mTOR variants were analyz...

Akt1 is a multi-functional protein implicated in key cellular processes including regulation of proliferation, survival, metabolism and protein synthesis. Its functional diversity results through interactions with other proteins which change with changing context. This study was designed to capture proteins, which interact with Akt1 as the cell cycle progresses from G0 to G1S and then G2 phase....

Endogenous replicative stress could be one trigger leading to tumor initiation: indeed, activation of the DNA damage response (DDR), considered the result of replicative stress, is observed in pre-cancerous cells; moreover, in hereditary breast cancers, almost all of the genes affected relate to the DDR. The most frequently mutated gene in hereditary breast cancers, BRCA1, is essential for homo...

Sphingosylphosphorylcholine induces keratin phosphorylation and reorganization, and increases viscoelasticity of metastatic cancer cells such as PANC-1 cells. However, the mechanism involved in sphingosylphosphorylcholine-induced keratin phosphorylation and reorganization is largely unknown. Sphingosylphosphorylcholine dose- and time-dependently induces the expression of RhebL1. The involvement...

Phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3K), protein kinase B (AKT1), and c-myc have well-established roles in promoting the maintenance of murine embryonic stem cells (mESCs). In contrast, the activity of glycogen synthase kinase 3beta (GSK3beta), a negatively regulated target of AKT1 signaling, antagonizes self-renewal. Here, we show that PI3K/AKT1 signaling promotes self-renewal by suppressing GSK3...

In Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana), the Shaker K channel AKT1 conducts K uptake in root cells, and its activity is regulated by CBL1/9-CIPK23 complexes as well as by the AtKC1 channel subunit. CIPK23 and AtKC1 are both involved in the AKT1mediated low-K (LK) response; however, the relationship between them remains unclear. In this study, we screened suppressors of low-K sensitive [lks1 (cipk...

BACKGROUND Akt is a critical mediator of developmental skeletal muscle growth. Treatment with a soluble ActRIIB fusion protein (ActRIIB-mFc) increases skeletal muscle mass and strength by inhibiting myostatin and related peptides. Recent in vitro studies have suggested that Akt signaling is necessary for the ability of ActRIIB inhibition to induce muscle hypertrophy. Thus, we hypothesized that ...

The AKT1 (v-akt murine thymoma viral oncogene homologue 1) kinase is a member of most frequently activated proliferation and survival signaling pathway in cancer. Recently, hyperactivation of AKT1, due to functional point mutation in the pleckstrin homology (PH) domain of AKT1 gene, has been found to be associated with human colorectal, breast and ovarian cancer. Thus, considering its crucial r...

With a propensity to invade the dermal lymphatic vessels of the skin overlying the breast and readily metastasize, inflammatory breast cancer (IBC) is arguably the deadliest form of breast cancer. We previously reported that caveolin-1 is overexpressed in IBC and that RhoC GTPase is a metastatic switch responsible for the invasive phenotype. RhoC-driven invasion requires phosphorylation by Akt1...

The hotspot E17K mutation in the pleckstrin homology domain of AKT1 occurs in approximately 0.6-2% of human lung cancers. In this manuscript, we sought to determine whether this AKT1 variant is a bona-fide activating mutation and plays a role in the development of lung cancer. Here we report that in immortalized human bronchial epithelial cells (BEAS-2B cells) mutant AKT1-E17K promotes anchorag...