Aurora kinase B inhibition reduces the proliferation of metastatic melanoma cells and enhances the response to chemotherapy.

BACKGROUND: The poor response to chemotherapy and the brief response to vemurafenib in metastatic melanoma patients, make the identification of new therapeutic approaches an urgent need. Interestingly the increased expression and activity of the Aurora kinase B during melanoma progression suggests it as a promising therapeutic target. METHODS: The efficacy of the Aurora B kinase inhibitor barasertib-HQPA was evaluated in BRAF mutated cells, sensitive and made resistant to vemurafenib after chronic exposure to the drug, and in BRAF wild type cells. The drug effectiveness has been evaluated as cell growth inhibition, cell cycle progression and cell migration. In addition, cellular effectors of drug resistance and response were investigated. RESULTS: The characterization of the effectors responsible for the resistance to vemurafenib evidenced the increased expression of MITF or the activation of Erk1/2 and p-38 kinases in the newly established cell lines with a phenotype resistant to vemurafenib. The sensitivity of cells to barasertib-HQPA was irrespective of BRAF mutational status. Barasertib-HQPA induced the mitotic catastrophe, ultimately causing apoptosis and necrosis of cells, inhibited cell migration and strongly affected the glycolytic metabolism of cells inducing the release of lactate. In association i) with vemurafenib the gain in effectiveness was found only in BRAF(V600K) cells while ii) with nab-paclitaxel, the combination was more effective than each drug alone in all cells. CONCLUSIONS: These findings suggest barasertib as a new therapeutic agent and as enhancer of chemotherapy in metastatic melanoma treatment.

Irradiation-induced angiosarcoma and anti-angiogenic therapy: a therapeutic hope?

Angiosarcomas are rare soft-tissue sarcomas of endothelial cell origin. They can be sporadic or caused by therapeutic radiation, hence secondary breast angiosarcomas are an important subgroup of patients. Assessing the molecular biology of angiosarcomas and identify specific targets for treatment is challenging. There is currently great interest in the role of angiogenesis and of angiogenic factors associated with tumor pathogenesis and as targets for treatment of angiosarcomas. A primary cell line derived from a skin fragment of a irradiation-induced angiosarcoma patient was obtained and utilized to evaluate cell biomarkers CD31, CD34, HIF-1 alpha and VEGFRs expression by immunocytochemistry and immunofluorescence, drugs cytotoxicity by cell counting and VEGF release by ELISA immunoassay. In addition to previous biomarkers, FVIII and VEGF were also evaluated on tumor specimens by immunohistochemistry to further confirm the diagnosis. We targeted the VEGF-VEGFR-2 axis of tumor angiogenesis with two different class of vascular targeted drugs; caprelsa, the VEGFR-2/EGFR/RET inhibitor and bevacizumab the anti-VEGF monoclonal antibody. We found the same biomarkers expression either in tumor specimens and in the cell line derived from tumor. In vitro experiments demonstrated that angiogenesis plays a pivotal role in the progression of this tumor as cells displayed high level of VEGFR-2, HIF-1 alpha strongly accumulated into the nucleus and the pro-angiogenic factor VEGF was released by cells in culture medium. The evaluation of caprelsa and bevacizumab cytotoxicity demonstrated that both drugs were effective in inhibiting tumor proliferation. Due to these results, we started to treat the patient with pazopanib, which was the unique tyrosine kinase inhibitor available in Italy through a compassionate supply program, obtaining a long lasting partial response. Our data suggest that the study of the primary cell line could help physicians in choosing a therapeutic approach for patient that almost in vitro shows chances of success and that the anti-angiogenetic agents are a reliable therapeutic opportunity for angiosarcomas patients.

Optimize radiochemotherapy in pancreatic cancer: PARP inhibitors a new therapeutic opportunity.

Cancer cells may use PARP enzymes and Homologous Recombination to repair single and double strand breaks caused by genotoxic insults. In this study, the PARP-1 inhibitor Rucaparib was utilized to increase the sensitivity to chemoradiotherapy treatment in BRCA-2-deficient and -proficient pancreatic cancer cells. We used the pancreatic cancer cell lines, Capan-1 with mutated BRCA-2 and Panc-1, AsPC-1 and MiaPaCa-2 with BRCA-1/2 wild type. Cells were treated with Rucaparib and/or radiotherapy (4-10 Gy) plus Gemcitabine then the capability to proliferate was evaluated by colony formation, cell counting and MTT assays. Flow cytometry, immunocytochemistry and western blotting were utilized to assess cell response to Rucaparib plus irradiation. The antitumour effectiveness of combining the PARP-1 inhibitor before, together and after radiotherapy evidenced the first as the optimal schedule in blocking cell growth. Pre-exposure to Rucaparib increased the cytotoxicity of Gemcitabine plus radiotherapy by heavily inducing the accumulation of cells in G2/M phase, impairing mitosis and finally inducing apoptosis and authophagy. The upregulation of p-Akt and downregulation of p53 were evidenced in MiaPaCa-2 which displayed replication stress features. For the first time, the rationale of using a PARP inhibitor as chemoradiosensitizer in pancreatic cancer models has been hypothesized and demonstrated.

MC70 potentiates doxorubicin efficacy in colon and breast cancer in vitro treatment.

A major limitation of cancer treatment is the ability of cancer cells to develop resistance to chemotherapeutic drugs, by the establishment of multidrug resistance. Here, we characterize MC70 as ABC transporters inhibitor and anticancer agent, alone or with chemotherapy. MC70 was analyzed for its interaction with ABCB1, ABCG2 and ABCC1 by specific transport assays. In breast and colon cancer cell lines, cell growth and apoptosis were measured by MTT assay and DNA laddering Elisa kit, respectively. Cell cycle perturbation and cellular targets modulation were analyzed by Flow-cytometry and Western blotting, respectively. MC70 interacted with ABC transporters. In breast cancer cells, MC70 slightly inhibited cell proliferation strongly enhancing doxorubicin effectiveness. By contrast, MC70 was found to inhibit cell growth in colon cancer cells without affecting doxorubicin efficacy and in combination with topoisomerase I inhibitors it could be a promising therapeutic approach. What is more, it was also observed that MC70 induced apoptosis, canceled in favor of necrosis when given in combination with high doses of doxorubicin. MC70 inhibited cell migration probably through its interaction with sigma-1 receptor. Modulations of i) cell cycle, ii) pAkt and the phosphorylation of the three MAPKs were highlighted, while any activity was excluded at transcription level, thus accounting for the phenotypic effects observed. MC70 might be considered as a new potential anticancer agent capable to i) enhance chemotherapy effectiveness and ii) to play a contributory role in the treatment of chemotherapy resistant tumors.

Tyrosine kinase inhibitors and multidrug resistance proteins: interactions and biological consequences.

Although multidrug resistance (MDR) proteins are known to play a role in drug resistance and modification pharmacodynamic characteristics of certain conventional chemotherapeutics, information about their interactions with tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) remains fragmentary and somewhat controversial. The chronic administration of TKIs in many clinical situations strongly suggests that any possible interactions with MDR transporters should be studied as a function of time. For example, short periods of exposure to TKIs could provide insights into the nature of the binding to MDR-related proteins, either as substrates or as inhibitors, whereas prolonged exposure to TKIs could provide insights into cellular responses to binding/inhibition of MDR-related proteins. In this report, we provide evidence that suggests that both Gefitinib and Vandetanib may act as transported substrates for Breast Cancer Resistance Protein (BCRP, ABCG2). Conversely, the interaction of Gefitinib and Vandetanib with P-glycoprotein (PgP, MDR1) appeared to be as inhibitors alone. Consistent with this, short periods of exposure (≤24 h) to either Gefitinib or Vandetanib increased the effectiveness of SN-38, the active metabolite of CPT-11. Conversely, prolonged exposure (5 days) decreased SN-38 effectiveness, and was associated with BCRP up-regulation and reduced cell accumulation in S-phase, possibly though reduced intracellular accumulation of SN-38. This report underlines the needs for more detailed characterisation new biologically targeted anticancer drugs, in particular analysing periods of both short and prolonged drug exposure reflecting potentially distinct situations in the clinic in order to optimise future development in combination with established chemotherapeutic approaches.