Cadmium Activates EGFR/STAT5 Signaling to Overcome Calcium Chelation and Promote Epithelial to Mesenchymal Transition

Cadmium (Cd) is a heavy metal found in cigarette smoke, as well as in air and drinking water due to agricultural and industrial activities, and it poses a health risk to the general population. Prolonged low-dose Cd exposure via inhalation or ingestion causes lung and kidney cancers in humans and in animal models. While high doses of Cd exposure are correlated with the occupational setting and are cytotoxic, low doses of Cd are mainly correlated with exposure in the general population and induce carcinogenesis. The mechanism by which Cd-exposed cells overcome calcium chelation and induce malignant transformation remains unclear. This study examines how cells exposed to low doses of Cd survive loss of E-cadherin cell-cell adhesion via activation of the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) and signal transducer and activator of transcription 5 (STAT5), which work to upregulate genes associated with survival and proliferation. To demonstrate the role of Cd in EGFR/STAT5 activation, we exposed two epithelial cell lines, BEAS-2B and HEK293, to two different doses (0.4 µM and 1.6 µM) of Cadmium chloride hemipentahydrate (CdCl₂·2.5H₂O) that are environmentally relevant to levels of Cd found in food and cigarettes for 24 h (hours) and 9 weeks (wks). When comparing cells treated with Cd with control cells, the Cd treated cells exhibited faster proliferation; therefore, we studied activation of EGFR via the STAT5 pathway using immunofluorescence (IF) for protein expression and localization and, in addition, RT-qPCR to examine changes in EGFR/STAT5 inducible genes. Our results showed an increase in EGFR and phosphorylated EGFR (p-EGFR) protein, with 1.6 µM of Cadmium having the highest expression at both 24-hour (hr) and 9-week (wk) exposures. Moreover, the IF analysis also demonstrated an increase of STAT5 and phosphorylated STAT5 (pSTAT5) in both short-term and long-term exposure, with 0.4 µM having the highest expression at 24 h. Finally, via Western blot analysis, we showed that there was a dose-dependent decrease in E-cadherin protein expression and increased N-cadherin in cells treated with low doses of Cd. These data demonstrate that epithelial cells can overcome Cd-mediated toxicity via activation of EGFR pathway to induce cell proliferation and survival and promote epithelial to mesenchymal transition.