Lapatinib Inhibits Breast Cancer Cell Proliferation by Influencing PKM2 Expression

Pyruvate kinase type M2, which is expressed in multiple tumor cell types and plays a key role in aerobic glycolysis, also has nonglycolytic functions and can regulate transcription and cell proliferation. The results of this study show that epidermal growth factor receptor activation induces pyruvate kinase type M2 nuclear translocation. To further determine the relationship between pyruvate kinase type M2 and epidermal growth factor receptor, we analyzed pathological data from mammary glands and performed epidermal growth factor receptor/human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 knockdown to reveal that pyruvate kinase type M2 is associated with epidermal growth factor receptor and human epidermal growth factor receptor 2. Lapatinib is a small molecule epidermal growth factor receptor tyrosine kinase inhibitor that can inhibit epidermal growth factor receptor and human epidermal growth factor receptor 2, though its effect on pyruvate kinase type M2 remains elusive. Accordingly, we performed Western blotting and reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction and analyzed pathological data from mammary glands, with results suggesting that lapatinib inhibits pyruvate kinase type M2 expression. We further found that the antitumor drug lapatinib inhibits breast cancer cell proliferation by influencing pyruvate kinase type M2 expression, as based on Cell Counting Kit-8 analyses and pyruvate kinase type M2 overexpression experiments. Signal transducer and activator of transcription 3, which is a transcription factor-associated cell proliferation and the only transcription factor that interacts with pyruvate kinase type M2, we performed pyruvate kinase type M2 knockdown experiments in Human breast cancer cells MDA-MB-231 and Human breast cancer cells SK-BR-3 cell lines and examined the effect on levels of Signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 and phosphorylated Signal transducer and activator of transcription 3. The results indicate that pyruvate kinase type M2 regulates Signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 and phospho-Stat3 (Tyr705) expression. Together with previous reports, our findings show that lapatinib inhibits breast cancer cell proliferation by influencing pyruvate kinase type M2 expression, which results in a reduction in both Signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 and phosphorylated Signal transducer and activator of transcription 3.