The dual-specificity phosphatase 10 (DUSP10): Its role in cancer, inflammation, and immunity

Cancer is one of the most diagnosed diseases in developed countries. Inflammation is a common response to different stress situations including cancer and infection. In those processes, the family of mitogen-activated protein kinases (MAPKs) has an important role regulating cytokine secretion, proliferation, survival, and apoptosis, among others. MAPKs regulate a large number of extracellular signals upon a variety of physiological as well as pathological conditions. MAPKs activation is tightly regulated by phosphorylation/dephosphorylation events. In this regard, the dual-specificity phosphatase 10 (DUSP10) has been described as a MAPK phosphatase that negatively regulates p38 MAPK and c-Jun N-terminal kinase (JNK) in several cellular types and tissues. Several studies have proposed that extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK) can be also modulated by DUSP10. This suggests a complex role of DUSP10 on MAPKs regulation and, in consequence, its impact in a wide variety of responses involved in both cancer and inflammation. Here, we review DUSP10 function in cancerous and immune cells and studies in both mouse models and patients that establish a clear role of DUSP10 in different processes such as inflammation, immunity, and cancer.This research was funded by grants from from “Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación” (SAF2013-42850-R and SAF2016-75988-R) “Comunidad de Madrid” (S2017/BMD-3671. INFLAMUNE-CM), “Fondo de Investigaciones Sanitarias” (BIOIMID) to M.F. K.S. was recipient of a Spanish Association Against Cancer oncology investigator grant (AECC AIO)”