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@ARTICLE{Rademaker:301517,
author = {G. Rademaker and G. A. Hernandez and Y. Seo and S. Dahal
and L. Miller-Phillips and A. L. Li and X. L. Peng and C.
Luan and L. Qiu and M. A. Liegeois and B. Wang and K. W. Wen
and G. E. Kim and E. A. Collisson and S. F. Kruger and S.
Boeck$^*$ and S. Ormanns and M. Guenther and V. Heinemann
and M. Haas and M. R. Looney and J. J. Yeh and R. Zoncu and
R. M. Perera},
title = {{PCSK}9 drives sterol-dependent metastatic organ choice in
pancreatic cancer.},
journal = {Nature},
volume = {643},
number = {8074},
issn = {0028-0836},
address = {London [u.a.]},
publisher = {Nature Publ. Group},
reportid = {DKFZ-2025-01054},
pages = {1381-1390},
year = {2025},
note = {2025 Jul;643(8074):1381-1390},
abstract = {To grow at distant sites, metastatic cells must overcome
major challenges posed by the unique cellular and metabolic
composition of secondary organs1. Pancreatic ductal
adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is an aggressive disease that
metastasizes to the liver and lungs. Despite evidence of
metabolic reprogramming away from the primary site, the key
drivers that dictate the ability of PDAC cells to colonize
the liver or lungs and survive there remain undefined. Here
we identified PCSK9 as predictive of liver versus lung
colonization by integrating metastatic tropism data of human
PDAC cell lines2, in vivo metastasis modelling in mice and
gene expression correlation analysis. PCSK9 negatively
regulates low density lipoprotein (LDL)-cholesterol import
and, accordingly, PCSK9-low PDAC cells preferentially
colonize LDL-rich liver tissue. LDL-cholesterol taken up by
liver-avid PCSK9-low cells supports activation of pro-growth
mTORC1 activation at the lysosome, and through conversion
into the signalling oxysterol, 24(S)-hydroxycholesterol,
reprogrammes the microenvironment to release nutrients from
neighbouring hepatocytes. Conversely, PCSK9-high, lung-avid
PDAC cells rely on transcriptional upregulation of the
distal cholesterol synthesis pathway to generate
intermediates-7-dehydrocholesterol and
7-dehydrodesmosterol-with protective action against
ferroptosis, a vulnerability in the oxygen-rich
microenvironment of the lung. Increasing the amount of PCSK9
redirected liver-avid cells to the lung whereas ablating
PCSK9 drove lung-avid cells to the liver, thereby
establishing PCSK9 as necessary and sufficient for secondary
organ site preference. Our studies reveal PCSK9-driven
differential utilization of the distal cholesterol synthesis
pathway as a key and potentially actionable driver of
metastatic growth in PDAC.},
cin = {MU01},
ddc = {500},
cid = {I:(DE-He78)MU01-20160331},
pnm = {899 - ohne Topic (POF4-899)},
pid = {G:(DE-HGF)POF4-899},
typ = {PUB:(DE-HGF)16},
pubmed = {pmid:40399683},
doi = {10.1038/s41586-025-09017-8},
url = {https://inrepo02.dkfz.de/record/301517},
}