ABSTRACT
In ovarian tumors, the omental microenvironment profoundly influences the behavior of cancer cells and sustains the acquisition of stem-like traits, with major impacts on tumor aggressiveness and relapse. Here, we leverage a patient-derived platform of organotypic cultures to study the crosstalk between the tumor microenvironment and ovarian cancer stem cells. We discovered that the pro-tumorigenic transcription factor FOXM1 is specifically induced by the microenvironment in ovarian cancer stem cells, through activation of FAK/YAP signaling. The microenvironment-induced FOXM1 sustains stemness, and its inactivation reduces cancer stem cells survival in the omental niche and enhances their response to the PARP inhibitor Olaparib. By unveiling the novel role of FOXM1 in ovarian cancer stemness, our findings highlight patient-derived organotypic co-cultures as a powerful tool to capture clinically relevant mechanisms of the microenvironment/cancer stem cells crosstalk, contributing to the identification of tumor vulnerabilities.
Subject(s)
Forkhead Box Protein M1 , Neoplastic Stem Cells , Ovarian Neoplasms , Tumor Microenvironment , Humans , Tumor Microenvironment/drug effects , Forkhead Box Protein M1/metabolism , Forkhead Box Protein M1/genetics , Female , Ovarian Neoplasms/pathology , Ovarian Neoplasms/metabolism , Ovarian Neoplasms/genetics , Ovarian Neoplasms/drug therapy , Neoplastic Stem Cells/metabolism , Neoplastic Stem Cells/pathology , Neoplastic Stem Cells/drug effects , Cell Line, Tumor , Signal Transduction/drug effects , YAP-Signaling Proteins/metabolism , Focal Adhesion Kinase 1/metabolism , Focal Adhesion Kinase 1/genetics , Mice , Gene Expression Regulation, Neoplastic/drug effects , Animals , Phthalazines/pharmacology , Piperazines/pharmacologyABSTRACT
Cell adhesion molecule L1 is a cell surface glycoprotein that promotes neuronal cell migration, fosters regeneration after spinal cord injury and ameliorates the consequences of neuronal degeneration in mouse and zebrafish models. Counter-indicative features of L1 were found in tumor progression: the more L1 is expressed, the more tumor cells migrate and increase their metastatic potential. L1's metastatic potential is further evidenced by its promotion of epithelial-mesenchymal transition, endothelial cell transcytosis and resistance to chemo- and radiotherapy. These unfortunate features are indicated by observations that cells that normally do not express L1 are induced to express it when becoming malignant. With the aim to ameliorate the devastating functions of L1 in tumors, we designed an alternative approach to counteract tumor cell migration. Libraries of small organic compounds were screened using the ELISA competition approach similar to the one that we used for identifying L1 agonistic mimetics. Whereas in the former approach, a function-triggering monoclonal antibody was used for screening libraries, we here used the function-inhibiting monoclonal antibody 324 that reduces the migration of neurons. We now show that the L1 antagonistic mimetics anagrelide, 2-hydroxy-5-fluoropyrimidine and mestranol inhibit the migration of cultured tumor cells in an L1-dependent manner, raising hopes for therapy.
