Redrawing Urokinase Receptor (uPAR) Signaling with Cancer Driver Genes for Exploring Possible Anti-Cancer Targets and Drugs

Abstract

During tumorigenesis, urokinase (uPA) and uPA receptor (uPAR) play essential roles in mediating pathological progression in many cancers. To understand the crosstalk between the uPA/uPAR signaling and cancer, as well as to decipher their cellular pathways, we proposed to use cancer driver genes to map out the uPAR signaling. In the study, an integrated pharmaceutical bioinformatics approach that combined modulator identification, driver gene ontology networking, protein targets prediction and networking, pathway analysis and uPAR modulator screening platform construction was employed to uncover druggable targets in uPAR signaling for developing a novel anti-cancer modality. Through these works, we found that uPAR signaling interacted with 10 of 21 KEGG cancer pathways, indicating the important role of uPAR in mediating intracellular cancerous signaling. Furthermore, we verified that receptor tyrosine kinases (RTKs) and ribosomal S6 kinases (RSKs) could serve as signal hubs to relay uPAR-mediated cellular functions on cancer hallmarks such as angiogenesis, proliferation, migration and metastasis. Moreover, we established an in silico virtual screening platform and a uPAR–driver gene pair rule for identifying potential uPAR modulators to combat cancer. Altogether, our results not only elucidated the complex networking between uPAR modulation and cancer but also provided a paved way for developing new chemical entities and/or re-positioning clinically used drugs against cancer.