The role of deoxyguanosine kinase for nucleoside analog activation in leukemic and solid tumor cell lines

• Screening malignant melanoma cell lines against nucleoside analogs revealed as high sensitivity to fludarabine, clofarabine, and gemcitabine as to leukemic cells, and especially in those cells expressing high levels of the mitochondrial enzyme deoxuguanosine kinase (dGK). This enzyme, together with the cytosolic deoxycytidine kinase (dCK), and the mitochondrial thymidine kinase 2 (TK2) contributes to the activation of natural deoxyribonucleosides and nucleoside analogs to phosphorylated compounds. dCK is the most prominent enzyme in hematopoietic cells, while dGK may be high in cells harbouring many mitochondria, such as neurons and melanocytes. We found that dGK mRNA and protein expression was considerably higher in melanoma cells than in a leukemic cell line, while the difference at the activity level was less profound. Downregulation of dGK in the melanoma cell line RaH5 using siRNA led to a compensatory increase in TK2 activity, which led to significantly increased sensitivity of the cells to gemcitabine. In contrast, downregulation of dGK in the human leukemic CEM cell line decreased TK2 activity, and rendered the cells more resistant to the drugs. The compensatory regulation of deoxynucleoside kinases with over-lapping substrate specificity differed in leukemic and melanoma cell lines probably because they preferably rely on different deoxynucleoside kinases for nucleoside and nucleoside analog activation. dGK and TK2 that are both located in the mitochondria, seems to be able to compensate for each other to a higher extent in the dGK-dependent melanoma cells compared to CEM cells that possess high dCK activity. Solid tumors, such as melanoma, expressing high levels of dGK should be considered for nucleoside analog therapy preferably in combination with their standard treatment.

Nyckelord

Deoxyguanosine kinase

melanoma

leukemia

nucleoside analog

RNAi

MEDICINE

MEDICIN

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vet (ämneskategori)

ovr (ämneskategori)