Ultraviolet irradiation can induce evasion of colon cancer cells from stimulation of epidermal growth factor.

Receptor down-regulation is the most prominent regulatory system of EGF receptor (EGFR) signal attenuation and a critical target for therapy against colon cancer, which is highly dependent on the function of the EGFR. In this study, we investigated the effect of ultraviolet-C (UV-C) on down-regulation of EGFR in human colon cancer cells (SW480, HT29, and DLD-1). UV-C caused inhibition of cell survival and proliferation, concurrently inducing the decrease in cell surface EGFR and subsequently its degradation. UV-C, as well as EGFR kinase inhibitors, decreased the expression level of cyclin D1 and the phosphorylated level of retinoblastoma, indicating that EGFR down-regulation is correlated to cell cycle arrest. Although UV-C caused a marked phosphorylation of EGFR at Ser-1046/1047, UV-C also induced activation of p38 MAPK, a stress-inducible kinase believed to negatively regulate tumorigenesis, and the inhibition of p38 MAPK canceled EGFR phosphorylation at Ser-1046/1047, as well as subsequent internalization and degradation, suggesting that p38 MAPK mediates EGFR down-regulation by UV-C. In addition, phosphorylation of p38 MAPK induced by UV-C was mediated through transforming growth factor-β-activated kinase-1. Moreover, pretreatment of the cells with UV-C suppressed EGF-induced phosphorylation of EGFR at tyrosine residues in addition to cell survival signal, Akt. Together, these results suggest that UV-C irradiation induces the removal of EGFRs from the cell surface that can protect colon cancer cells from oncogenic stimulation of EGF, resulting in cell cycle arrest. Hence, UV-C might be applied for clinical strategy against human colon cancers.