| 1. |
- D'Arcy, Pádraig, et al.
(författare)
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Inhibition of proteasome deubiquitinating activity as a novel cancer therapy
- 2011
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Ingår i: Nature Medicine. - Stockholm : Karolinska Institutet, Dept of Oncology-Pathology. - 1546-170X .- 1078-8956.
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Ubiquitin-tagged substrates are degraded by the 26S proteasome, which is a multisubunit complex comprising a proteolytic 20S core particle capped by 19S regulatory particles. The approval of bortezomib for the treatment of multiple myeloma validated the 20S core particle as an anticancer drug target. Here we describe the small molecule b-AP15 as a previously unidentified class of proteasome inhibitor that abrogates the deubiquitinating activity of the 19S regulatory particle. b-AP15 inhibited the activity of two 19S regulatory-particle-associated deubiquitinases, ubiquitin C-terminal hydrolase 5 (UCHL5) and ubiquitin-specific peptidase 14 (USP14), resulting in accumulation of polyubiquitin. b-AP15 induced tumor cell apoptosis that was insensitive to TP53 status and overexpression of the apoptosis inhibitor BCL2. We show that treatment with b-AP15 inhibited tumor progression in four different in vivo solid tumor models and inhibited organ infiltration in an acute myeloid leukemia model. Our results show that the deubiquitinating activity of the 19S regulatory particle is a new anticancer drug target.
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| 2. |
- Fayad, Walid, et al.
(författare)
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Identification of a novel topoisomerase inhibitor effective in cells overexpressing drug efflux transporters
- 2009
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Ingår i: PLOS ONE. - : Public Library of Science (PLoS). - 1932-6203. ; 4:10, s. e7238-
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- BACKGROUND: Natural product structures have high chemical diversity and are attractive as lead structures for discovery of new drugs. One of the disease areas where natural products are most frequently used as therapeutics is oncology. METHOD AND FINDINGS: A library of natural products (NCI Natural Product set) was screened for compounds that induce apoptosis of HCT116 colon carcinoma cells using an assay that measures an endogenous caspase-cleavage product. One of the apoptosis-inducing compounds identified in the screen was thaspine (taspine), an alkaloid from the South American tree Croton lechleri. The cortex of this tree is used for medicinal purposes by tribes in the Amazonas basin. Thaspine was found to induce conformational activation of the pro-apoptotic proteins Bak and Bax, mitochondrial cytochrome c release and mitochondrial membrane permeabilization in HCT116 cells. Analysis of the gene expression signature of thaspine-treated cells suggested that thaspine is a topoisomerase inhibitor. Inhibition of both topoisomerase I and II was observed using in vitro assays, and thaspine was found to have a reduced cytotoxic effect on a cell line with a mutated topoisomerase II enzyme. Interestingly, in contrast to the topoisomerase II inhibitors doxorubicin, etoposide and mitoxantrone, thaspine was cytotoxic to cell lines overexpressing the PgP or MRP drug efflux transporters. We finally show that thaspine induces wide-spread apoptosis in colon carcinoma multicellular spheroids and that apoptosis is induced in two xenograft mouse models in vivo. CONCLUSIONS: The alkaloid thaspine from the cortex of Croton lechleri is a dual topoisomerase inhibitor effective in cells overexpressing drug efflux transporters and induces wide-spread apoptosis in multicellular spheroids.
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| 3. |
- Fayad, Walid, et al.
(författare)
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Identification of Agents that Induce Apoptosis of Multicellular Tumour Spheroids : Enrichment for Mitotic Inhibitors with Hydrophobic Properties
- 2011
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Ingår i: Chemical Biology and Drug Design. - : Wiley. - 1747-0277 .- 1747-0285. ; 78:4, s. 547-557
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Cell-based anticancer drug screening generally utilizes rapidly proliferating tumour cells grown as monolayer cultures. Hit compounds from such screens are not necessarily effective on hypoxic and slowly proliferating cells in 3-D tumour tissue. The aim of this study was to examine the potential usefulness of 3-D cultured tumour cells for anticancer drug screening. We used colon carcinoma multicellular spheroids containing hypoxic and quiescent cells in core areas for this purpose. Three libraries (similar to 11 000 compounds) were screened using antiproliferative activity and/or apoptosis as end-points. Screening of monolayer and spheroid cultures was found to identify different sets of hit compounds. Spheroid screening enriched for hydrophobic compounds: median XLogP values of 4.3 and 4.4 were observed for the hits in two independent screening campaigns. Mechanistic analysis revealed that the majority of spheroid screening hits were microtubuli inhibitors. One of these inhibitors was examined in detail and found to be effective against non-dividing cells in the hypoxic centres of spheroids. Spheroid screening represents a conceptually new strategy for anticancer drug discovery. Our findings have implications for drug library design and hit selection in projects aimed to develop drugs for the treatment of solid tumours.
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| 4. |
- Fryknäs, Mårten, et al.
(författare)
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Iron chelators target both proliferating and quiescent cancer cells
- 2016
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Ingår i: Scientific Reports. - : NATURE PUBLISHING GROUP. - 2045-2322. ; 6
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Poorly vascularized areas of solid tumors contain quiescent cell populations that are resistant to cell cycle-active cancer drugs. The compound VLX600 was recently identified to target quiescent tumor cells and to inhibit mitochondrial respiration. We here performed gene expression analysis in order to characterize the cellular response to VLX600. The compound-specific signature of VLX600 revealed a striking similarity to signatures generated by compounds known to chelate iron. Validation experiments including addition of ferrous and ferric iron in excess, EXAFS measurements, and structure activity relationship analyses showed that VLX600 chelates iron and supported the hypothesis that the biological effects of this compound is due to iron chelation. Compounds that chelate iron possess anti-cancer activity, an effect largely attributed to inhibition of ribonucleotide reductase in proliferating cells. Here we show that iron chelators decrease mitochondrial energy production, an effect poorly tolerated by metabolically stressed tumor cells. These pleiotropic features make iron chelators an attractive option for the treatment of solid tumors containing heterogeneous populations of proliferating and quiescent cells.
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| 5. |
- Hernlund, Emma, et al.
(författare)
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The phosphoinositide 3-kinase/mammalian target of rapamycin inhibitor NVP-BEZ235 is effective in inhibiting regrowth of tumour cells after cytotoxic therapy
- 2012
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Ingår i: European Journal of Cancer. - : Elsevier BV. - 0959-8049 .- 1879-0852. ; 48:3, s. 396-406
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- PURPOSE:Regrowth of tumour cells between cycles of chemotherapy is a significant clinical problem. Treatment strategies where antiproliferative agents are used to inhibit tumour regrowth between chemotherapy cycles are attractive, but such strategies are difficult to test using conventional monolayer culture systems.METHODS:We used the in vitro tumour spheroid model to study regrowth of 3-D colon carcinoma tissue after cytotoxic therapy. Colon carcinoma cells with wild-type or mutant phosphatidyl inositol 3-kinase catalytic subunit (PI3KCA) or KRAS alleles were allowed to form multicellular spheroids and the effects of different pharmacological compounds were studied after sectioning and staining for relevant markers of cell proliferation and apoptosis.RESULTS:Studies using colon cancer cells with gene disruptions suggested that the phosphoinositide 3-kinase (PI3K)-mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) pathway was essential for proliferation in 3-D culture. The dual PI3K-mTOR inhibitor NVP-BEZ235, currently in clinical trials, was found to inhibit phosphorylation of the mTOR target 4EBP1 in 3-D cultured cells. The ability of NVP-BEZ235 to inhibit tumour cell proliferation and to induce apoptosis was markedly more pronounced in 3-D cultures compared to monolayer cultures. It was subsequently found that NVP-BEZ235 was effective in inhibiting regrowth of 3-D cultured cells after treatment with two cytotoxic inhibitors of the ubiquitin-proteasome system (UPS), methyl-13-hydroxy-15-oxokaurenoate (MHOK) and bortezomib (Velcade®).CONCLUSIONS:The dual PI3K-mTOR inhibitor NVP-BEZ235 was found to reduce cell proliferation and to induce apoptosis in 3-D cultured colon carcinoma cells, NVP-BEZ235 is a promising candidate for use in sequential treatment modalities together with cytotoxic drugs to reduce the cell mass of solid tumours.
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| 6. |
- Hägg Olofsson, Maria
(författare)
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Translational studies of drug-induced tumor cell death
- 2006
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- It is essential to understand the mechanisms of action of anticancer drugs in order to obtain good treatment results. I have in the present thesis studied clinically used anticancer agents as well as other agents that induce tumor cell death. Cisplatin, an important agent used to treat various forms of malignancies, was found to have a more complex mode of action than previously appreciated. Different doses of cisplatin were found to induce two distinct cellular outcomes: low doses induce senescence and high doses apoptosis via a mechanism involving reactive oxygen species and calcium. Interestingly, these outcomes appeared to be triggered by different signaling mechanisms: apoptosis by a cytoplasmic mechanism and senescence by DNA damage. The plant alkaloid ellipticine was identified as an agent that synergizes with cisplatin. Detailed studies showed that ellipticine induces an endoplasmic reticulum stress response characterized by induction of GRP78/BiP expression and splicing of the XBP1 transcription factor. Our studies of cisplatin and ellipticine emphasize the complex modes of action of many anticancer drugs. Calcium signaling has been implicated in apoptosis induced by many agents, including cisplatin. In order to characterize the role of calcium signaling in apoptosis, we examined apoptosis by 40 different compounds that were identified by screening a chemical library. Our study suggested that calpain and calmodulin kinase II are important mediators of calcium signaling in apoptosis. The requirement for calcium was generally late during the apoptotic process, and calcium signaling was implied in activation of Jun N-terminal kinase. Another aim of the work was to develop a method to monitor the activity of anticancer drugs in vivo. We measured caspase-cleaved cytokeratin 18 fragments in patient serum during cancer therapy. The method generated interesting clinical information. Docetaxel was found to be more effective in inducing tumor apoptosis in prostate cancer patients compared to two other agents. Of particular interest was that apoptosis was induced during a number of treatment cycles. By measuring the fraction of caspase-cleaved to total cytokeratin 18 in patient serum we obtained evidence suggesting that the CEF combination used to treat breast cancer induces a predominantly necrotic response. Improved methods to assess drug effects in vivo are expected to aid clinical development of new drugs and to be quite useful in clinical work.
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| 7. |
- Mazurkiewicz, Magdalena, et al.
(författare)
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Acute lymphoblastic leukemia cells are sensitive to disturbances in protein homeostasis induced by proteasome deubiquitinase inhibition
- 2017
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Ingår i: Oncotarget. - : IMPACT JOURNALS LLC. - 1949-2553. ; 8:13, s. 21115-21127
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The non-genotoxic nature of proteasome inhibition makes it an attractive therapeutic option for the treatment of pediatric malignancies. We recently described the small molecule VLX1570 as an inhibitor of proteasome deubiquitinase (DUB) activity that induces proteotoxic stress and apoptosis in cancer cells. Here we show that acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) cells are highly sensitive to treatment with VLX1570, resulting in the accumulation of polyubiquitinated proteasome substrates and loss of cell viability. VLX1570 treatment increased the levels of a number of proteins, including the chaperone HSP70B , the oxidative stress marker heme oxygenase-1 (HO-1) and the cell cycle regulator p21(Cip1). Unexpectedly, polybiquitin accumulation was found to be uncoupled from ER stress in ALL cells. Thus, increased phosphorylation of eIF2a occurred only at supra-pharmacological VLX1570 concentrations and did not correlate with polybiquitin accumulation. Total cellular protein synthesis was found to decrease in the absence of eIF2a phosphorylation. Furthermore, ISRIB (Integrated Stress Response inhibitor) did not overcome the inhibition of protein synthesis. We finally show that VLX1570 can be combined with L-asparaginase for additive or synergistic antiproliferative effects on ALL cells. We conclude that ALL cells are highly sensitive to the proteasome DUB inhibitor VLX1570 suggesting a novel therapeutic option for this disease.
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| 8. |
- Wang, Xin, et al.
(författare)
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The proteasome deubiquitinase inhibitor VLX1570 shows selectivity for ubiquitin-specific protease-14 and induces apoptosis of multiple myeloma cells
- 2016
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Ingår i: Scientific Reports. - : NATURE PUBLISHING GROUP. - 2045-2322. ; 6, s. 1-14
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Inhibition of deubiquitinase (DUB) activity is a promising strategy for cancer therapy. VLX1570 is an inhibitor of proteasome DUB activity currently in clinical trials for relapsed multiple myeloma. Here we show that VLX1570 binds to and inhibits the activity of ubiquitin-specific protease-14 (USP14) in vitro, with comparatively weaker inhibitory activity towards UCHL5 (ubiquitin-C-terminal hydrolase-5). Exposure of multiple myeloma cells to VLX1570 resulted in thermostabilization of USP14 at therapeutically relevant concentrations. Transient knockdown of USP14 or UCHL5 expression by electroporation of siRNA reduced the viability of multiple myeloma cells. Treatment of multiple myeloma cells with VLX1570 induced the accumulation of proteasome-bound high molecular weight polyubiquitin conjugates and an apoptotic response. Sensitivity to VLX1570 was moderately affected by altered drug uptake, but was unaffected by overexpression of BCL2-family proteins or inhibitors of caspase activity. Finally, treatment with VLX1570 was found to lead to extended survival in xenograft models of multiple myeloma. Our findings demonstrate promising antiproliferative activity of VLX1570 in multiple myeloma, primarily associated with inhibition of USP14 activity.
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| 9. |
- Wållberg, Helena, et al.
(författare)
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HER2-Positive Tumors Imaged Within 1 Hour Using a Site-Specifically C-11-Labeled Sel-Tagged Affibody Molecule
- 2012
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Ingår i: Journal of Nuclear Medicine. - Stockholm : Society of Nuclear Medicine. - 0161-5505 .- 1535-5667 .- 2159-662X. ; 53:9, s. 1446-1453
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- A rapid, reliable method for distinguishing tumors or metastases that overexpress human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2) from those that do not is highly desired for individualizing therapy and predicting prognoses. In vivo imaging methods are available but not yet in clinical practice; new methodologies improving speed, sensitivity, and specificity are required. Methods: A HER2-binding Affibody molecule, Z(HER2:342), was recombinantly fused with a C-terminal selenocysteine-containing tetrapeptide Sel-tag, allowing site-specific labeling with either C-11 or Ga-68, followed by biodistribution studies with small-animal PET. Dosimetry data for the 2 radiotracers were compared. Imaging of HER2-expressing human tumor xenografts was performed using the C-11-labeled Affibody molecule. Results: Both the C-11- and Ga-68-labeled tracers initially cleared rapidly from the blood, followed by a slower decrease to 4-5 percentage injected dose per gram of tissue at 1 h. Final retention in the kidneys was much lower (>5-fold) for the C-11-labeled protein, and its overall absorbed dose was considerably lower. C-11-Z(HER2:342) showed excellent tumor-targeting capability, with almost 10 percentage injected dose per gram of tissue in HER2-expressing tumors within 1 h. Specificity was demonstrated by preblocking binding sites with excess ligand, yielding significantly reduced radiotracer uptake (P = 0.002), comparable to uptake in tumors with low HER2 expression. Conclusion: To our knowledge, the Sel-tagging technique is the first that enables site-specific C-11-radiolabeling of proteins. Here we present the finding that, in a favorable combination between radionuclide half-life and in vivo pharmacokinetics of the Affibody molecules, C-11-labeled Set-tagged Z(HER2:342) can successfully be used for rapid and repeated PET studies of HER2 expression in tumors.
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| 10. |
- Wållberg, Helena, et al.
(författare)
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Specific in vivo imaging of HER2-positive tumors within one hour using a site-specifically 11C-labeled Sel-tagged Affibody molecule
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Annan publikation (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- A rapid, reliable method for distinguishing tumors or metastases that overexpress human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2) from those that do not is highly desired for improvement of cancer care. In v ivo imaging methods are available, but are not yet in clinical practice; new methodologies improving speed, sensitivity and specificity are required. Here we describe promising results with a HER2‐binding Affibody molecule, ZHER2:342, recombinantly fused with a C‐terminal selenocysteine‐containing tetrapeptide Sel‐tag and site‐specifically labeled with either 11C or 68Ga for molecular imaging applications with positron emissiontomography (PET). In mice, both the 11C‐ and 68Ga‐labeled tracers initially cleared rapidly from the blood, followed by a slower decrease to 4‐5 %ID/g at 1 h. Final uptake in kidneys was much lower (> 5‐fold) for the 11C‐labeled protein, leading to markedly reduced background radioactivity in the abdomen. Furthermore, 11C‐labeled Sel‐tagged ZHER2:342 showed excellent tumor targeting capability, with almost 10 %ID/g in HER2 expressing tumors within the first hour. High specificity was demonstrated by preblocking the binding sites with excess ligand, which yielded low radiotracer uptakes, comparable to those in tumors with low endogenous HER2 expression. To our knowledge the Sel‐tagging technique is the first that enables site‐specific 11C radiolabelingof proteins. Here we present that, in a favorable combination between radionuclide half‐life and in vivo pharmacokinetics of the Affibody molecules, 11C‐labeled Sel taggedZHER2:342 can successfully be used for rapid and repeated PET studies of HER2 expression in tumors.
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