NF-kappaΒ-inducing kinase regulates stem cell phenotype in breast cancer

Inhibition of Stearoyl-CoA desaturase 1 reverts BRAF and MEK inhibition-induced selection of cancer stem cells in BRAF-mutated melanoma

BACKGROUND

Combination therapy with BRAF and MEK inhibitors significantly improves survival in BRAF mutated melanoma patients but is unable to prevent disease recurrence due to the emergence of drug resistance. Cancer stem cells (CSCs) have been involved in these long-term treatment failures. We previously reported in lung cancer that CSCs maintenance is due to altered lipid metabolism and dependent upon Stearoyl-CoA-desaturase (SCD1)-mediated upregulation of YAP and TAZ. On this ground, we investigated the role of SCD1 in melanoma CSCs.

METHODS

SCD1 gene expression data of melanoma patients were downloaded from TCGA and correlated with disease progression by bioinformatics analysis and confirmed on patient's tissues by qRT-PCR and IHC analyses. The effects of combination of BRAF/MEKi and the SCD1 inhibitor MF-438 were monitored by spheroid-forming and proliferation assays on a panel of BRAF-mutated melanoma cell lines grown in 3D and 2D conditions, respectively. SCD1, YAP/TAZ and stemness markers were evaluated in melanoma cells and tissues by qRT-PCR, WB and Immunofluorescence.

RESULTS

We first observed that SCD1 expression increases during melanoma progression. BRAF-mutated melanoma 3D cultures enriched for CSCs overexpressed SCD1 and were more resistant than 2D differentiated cultures to BRAF and MEK inhibitors. We next showed that exposure of BRAF-mutated melanoma cells to MAPK pathway inhibitors enhanced stemness features by upregulating the expression of YAP/TAZ and downstream genes but surprisingly not SCD1. However, SCD1 pharmacological inhibition was able to downregulate YAP/TAZ and to revert at the same time CSC enrichment and resistance to MAPK inhibitors.

CONCLUSIONS

Our data underscore the role of SCD1 as prognostic marker in melanoma and promote the use of SCD1 inhibitors in combination with MAPK inhibitors for the control of drug resistance.

Effect of Bmi-1-mediated NF-κB signaling pathway on the stem-like properties of CD133+ human liver cancer cells

OBJECTIVE

To investigate the impact of Bmi-1-mediated NF-κB pathway on the biological characteristics of CD133+ liver cancer stem cells (LCSCs).

METHODS

Flow cytometry was used to isolate CD133+ LCSC cells from Huh7, Hep3B, SK-hep1, and PLC/PRF-5 cells. CD133+ Huh7 cells were divided into Control, Blank, Bmi-1 siRNA, JSH-23 (NF-κB pathway inhibitor), and Bmi-1 + JSH-23 groups. The properties of CD133+ Huh7 cells were detected by the colony-formation and sphere-forming assays. Besides, Transwell assay was applied for the measurement of cell invasion and migration, immunofluorescence staining for the detection of NF-κB p65 nuclear translocation, and qRT-PCR and Western blotting for the determination of SOX2, NANOG, OCT4, Bmi-1, and NF-κB p65 expression.

RESULTS

CD133+ Huh-7 cells were chosen as the experiment subjects after flow cytometry. Compared with CD133- Huh-7 cells, the expression of CD133, OCT4, SOX2, NANOG, Bmi-1, and NF-κB p65, the nuclear translocation of NF-κB p65, the number of cell colonies and Sphere formation, as well as the abilities of invasion and migration were observed to be increased in CD133+ Huh-7 cells, which was inhibited after treated with Bmi-1 siRNA or JSH-23, meanwhile, the cell cycle was arrested at the G0/G1 and S phases with apparently enhanced cell apoptosis. Importantly, no significant differences in the biological characteristics of CD133 + Huh-7 cells were found between the Blank group and Bmi-1 + JSH-23 group.

CONCLUSION

Down-regulating Bmi-1 may inhibit the biological properties of CD133+ LCSC by blocking NF-κB signaling pathway, which lays a scientific foundation for the clinical treatment of liver cancer.

Noncanonical NF-κB in Cancer

The NF-κB pathway is a critical regulator of immune responses and is often dysregulated in cancer. Two NF-κB pathways have been described to mediate these responses, the canonical and the noncanonical. While understudied compared to the canonical NF-κB pathway, noncanonical NF-κB and its components have been shown to have effects, usually protumorigenic, in many different cancer types. Here, we review noncanonical NF-κB pathways and discuss its important roles in promoting cancer. We also discuss alternative NF-κB-independent functions of some the components of noncanonical NF-κB signaling. Finally, we discuss important crosstalk between canonical and noncanonical signaling, which blurs the two pathways, indicating that understanding the full picture of NF-κB regulation is critical to deciphering how this broad pathway promotes oncogenesis.

N-Acetyl-3-aminopyrazoles block the non-canonical NF-kB cascade by selectively inhibiting NIK

NF-κB-inducing kinase (NIK), an oncogenic drug target that is associated with various cancers, is a central signalling component of the non-canonical pathway. A blind screening process, which established that amino pyrazole related scaffolds have an effect on IKKbeta, led to a hit-to-lead optimization process that identified the aminopyrazole 3a as a low μM selective NIK inhibitor. Compound 3a effectively inhibited the NIK-dependent activation of the NF-κB pathway in tumour cells, confirming its selective inhibitory profile.

Chemopreventive activity of celastrol in drug-resistant human colon carcinoma cell cultures

Celastrol (tripterine) a pentacyclic triterpenoid extracted from the roots of Tripterygium wilfordii Hook f., exhibits potent antioxidant and anti-inflammatory activity and also exerts important anti-cancer effects, as induction of apoptosis and lowering the level of drug resistance of several cancers. Increased level of cellular resistance to cytostatic drugs is typical for colorectal cancers, and largely determines the failure of chemotherapy for this tumor. The purpose of our research was to evaluate the chemopreventive effect of celastrol on cultures of colon cancer cells resistant to doxorubicin (LOVO/DX). With the use of flow cytometry we have shown that celastrol reduces the cell size of the SP (side population; subpopulation of cancer cells enriched with cancer stem cells), increases frequency of apoptosis and binds to Pgp protein in cell membranes inhibiting its transport function. The inhibition of the Pgp transport function has been shown to increase the accumulation of rhodamine-123 and standard cytostatic- doxorubicin in LOVO/DX cells. Our results prove that celastrol exhibits significant chemopreventive and chemosensitizing activities on drug resistant colon cancer cells. Celastrol appears to be a good candidate for adjuvant medicine that can improve the effectiveness of standard cytostatic therapy in humans.

EMT/MET at the Crossroad of Stemness, Regeneration and Oncogenesis: The Ying-Yang Equilibrium Recapitulated in Cell Spheroids

The epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT) is an essential trans-differentiation process, which plays a critical role in embryonic development, wound healing, tissue regeneration, organ fibrosis, and cancer progression. It is the fundamental mechanism by which epithelial cells lose many of their characteristics while acquiring features typical of mesenchymal cells, such as migratory capacity and invasiveness. Depending on the contest, EMT is complemented and balanced by the reverse process, the mesenchymal-to-epithelial transition (MET). In the saving economy of the living organisms, the same (Ying-Yang) tool is integrated as a physiological strategy in embryonic development, as well as in the course of reparative or disease processes, prominently fibrosis, tumor invasion and metastasis. These mechanisms and their related signaling (e.g., TGF-β and BMPs) have been effectively studied in vitro by tissue-derived cell spheroids models. These three-dimensional (3D) cell culture systems, whose phenotype has been shown to be strongly dependent on TGF-β-regulated EMT/MET processes, present the advantage of recapitulating in vitro the hypoxic in vivo micro-environment of tissue stem cell niches and their formation. These spheroids, therefore, nicely reproduce the finely regulated Ying-Yang equilibrium, which, together with other mechanisms, can be determinant in cell fate decisions in many pathophysiological scenarios, such as differentiation, fibrosis, regeneration, and oncogenesis. In this review, current progress in the knowledge of signaling pathways affecting EMT/MET and stemness regulation will be outlined by comparing data obtained from cellular spheroids systems, as ex vivo niches of stem cells derived from normal and tumoral tissues. The mechanistic correspondence in vivo and the possible pharmacological perspective will be also explored, focusing especially on the TGF-β-related networks, as well as others, such as SNAI1, PTEN, and EGR1. This latter, in particular, for its ability to convey multiple types of stimuli into relevant changes of the cell transcriptional program, can be regarded as a heterogeneous "stress-sensor" for EMT-related inducers (growth factor, hypoxia, mechano-stress), and thus as a therapeutic target.

Opposing roles of Nfkb2 gene products p100 and p52 in the regulation of breast cancer stem cells

PURPOSE

Nuclear factor-kappa B (NF-κB) signalling has been shown to regulate properties of breast cancer stem cells. However, the specific contribution of the non-canonical NF-κB pathway, components of which are elevated in aggressive breast cancer has not been addressed.

METHODS

Through shRNA silencing of the Nfkb2 gene, the role of p100/p52 in 4T1 and N202.1A cell lines were assessed by NF-κB reporter, invasion, tumoursphere and orthotopic transplantation assays. The processing of p100 into p52 was also inhibited with a p97 ATPase inhibitor, NMS-873, and its effects on tumoursphere formation was assessed.

RESULTS

Knockdown of Nfkb2 led to opposing changes in NF-κB-dependent transcription. NF-κB activity was elevated in 4T1 cells and this resulted in increased motility, cancer stem cell (CSC) activity and tumourigenicity in vivo. Conversely, depletion of Nfkb2 in N202.1a cells decreased NF-κB activity, CSC properties and tumourigenicity in vivo. By selectively overexpressing the p52 subunit in Nfkb2 depleted cells, we found that the increased malignancy in 4T1 cells could not be reverted in the presence of p52, whereas the decreased tumourigenicity of N202.1a cells could be rescued by p52. These results indicate that p100 and its subunit p52 have opposing effects on breast CSC activity. Accordingly, inhibition of an upstream regulator of p100 processing was effective in reducing tumoursphere formation of N202.1A and SKBR3 (ErbB2 ^HIGH) cells without aggravating that of 4T1 and MDA-MB-231 (ErbB2^LOW) cells.

CONCLUSION

These findings indicate that inhibiting the processing of p100 may be a potential therapeutic strategy to suppress CSC activity in a subset of breast tumours.