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Boulos JC, Chatterjee M, Shan L, Efferth T. In Silico, In Vitro, and In Vivo Investigations on Adapalene as Repurposed Third Generation Retinoid against Multiple Myeloma and Leukemia. Cancers (Basel) 2023; 15:4136. [PMID: 37627164 PMCID: PMC10452460 DOI: 10.3390/cancers15164136] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/28/2023] [Revised: 08/09/2023] [Accepted: 08/13/2023] [Indexed: 08/27/2023] Open
Abstract
The majority of hematopoietic cancers in adults are incurable and exhibit unpredictable remitting-relapsing patterns in response to various therapies. The proto-oncogene c-MYC has been associated with tumorigenesis, especially in hematological neoplasms. Therefore, targeting c-MYC is crucial to find effective, novel treatments for blood malignancies. To date, there are no clinically approved c-MYC inhibitors. In this study, we virtually screened 1578 Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved drugs from the ZINC15 database against c-MYC. The top 117 compounds from PyRx-based screening with the best binding affinities to c-MYC were subjected to molecular docking studies with AutoDock 4.2.6. Retinoids consist of synthetic and natural vitamin A derivatives. All-trans-retinoic acid (ATRA) were highly effective in hematological malignancies. In this study, adapalene, a third-generation retinoid usually used to treat acne vulgaris, was selected as a potent c-MYC inhibitor as it robustly bound to c-MYC with a lowest binding energy (LBE) of -7.27 kcal/mol, a predicted inhibition constant (pKi) of 4.69 µM, and a dissociation constant (Kd value) of 3.05 µM. Thus, we examined its impact on multiple myeloma (MM) cells in vitro and evaluated its efficiency in vivo using a xenograft tumor zebrafish model. We demonstrated that adapalene exerted substantial cytotoxicity against a panel of nine MM and two leukemic cell lines, with AMO1 cells being the most susceptible one (IC50 = 1.76 ± 0.39 µM) and, hence, the focus of this work. Adapalene (0.5 × IC50, 1 × IC50, 2 × IC50) decreased c-MYC expression and transcriptional activity in AMO1 cells in a dose-dependent manner. An examination of the cell cycle revealed that adapalene halted the cells in the G2/M phase and increased the portion of cells in the sub-G0/G1 phase after 48 and 72 h, indicating that cells failed to initiate mitosis, and consequently, cell death was triggered. Adapalene also increased the number of p-H3(Ser10) positive AMO1 cells, which is a further proof of its ability to prevent mitotic exit. Confocal imaging demonstrated that adapalene destroyed the tubulin network of U2OS cells stably transfected with a cDNA coding for α-tubulin-GFP, refraining the migration of malignant cells. Furthermore, adapalene induced DNA damage in AMO1 cells. It also induced apoptosis and autophagy, as demonstrated by flow cytometry and western blotting. Finally, adapalene impeded tumor growth in a xenograft tumor zebrafish model. In summary, the discovery of the vitamin A derivative adapalene as a c-MYC inhibitor reveals its potential as an avant-garde treatment for MM.
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Affiliation(s)
- Joelle C. Boulos
- Department of Pharmaceutical Biology, Institute of Pharmaceutical and Biomedical Sciences, Johannes Gutenberg University, Staudinger Weg 5, 55128 Mainz, Germany;
| | - Manik Chatterjee
- Translational Oncology, Comprehensive Cancer Center Mainfranken, University Hospital Würzburg, 97080 Würzburg, Germany;
| | - Letian Shan
- The First Affiliated Hospital, Zhejiang Chinese Medical University, Hangzhou 310053, China;
| | - Thomas Efferth
- Department of Pharmaceutical Biology, Institute of Pharmaceutical and Biomedical Sciences, Johannes Gutenberg University, Staudinger Weg 5, 55128 Mainz, Germany;
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Elbadawi M, Boulos JC, Dawood M, Zhou M, Gul W, ElSohly MA, Klauck SM, Efferth T. The Novel Artemisinin Dimer Isoniazide ELI-XXIII-98-2 Induces c-MYC Inhibition, DNA Damage, and Autophagy in Leukemia Cells. Pharmaceutics 2023; 15:pharmaceutics15041107. [PMID: 37111592 PMCID: PMC10144546 DOI: 10.3390/pharmaceutics15041107] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/15/2023] [Revised: 03/15/2023] [Accepted: 03/28/2023] [Indexed: 04/03/2023] Open
Abstract
The proto-oncogenic transcription factor c-MYC plays a pivotal role in the development of tumorigenesis, cellular proliferation, and the control of cell death. Its expression is frequently altered in many cancer types, including hematological malignancies such as leukemia. The dimer isoniazide ELI-XXIII-98-2 is a derivative of the natural product artemisinin, with two artemisinin molecules and an isoniazide moiety as a linker in between them. In this study, we aimed to study the anticancer activity and the molecular mechanisms of this dimer molecule in drug-sensitive CCRF-CEM leukemia cells and their corresponding multidrug-resistant CEM/ADR5000 sub-line. The growth inhibitory activity was studied using the resazurin assay. To reveal the molecular mechanisms underlying the growth inhibitory activity, we performed in silico molecular docking, followed by several in vitro approaches such as the MYC reporter assay, microscale thermophoresis, microarray analyses, immunoblotting, qPCR, and comet assay. The artemisinin dimer isoniazide showed a potent growth inhibitory activity in CCRF-CEM but a 12-fold cross-resistance in multidrug-resistant CEM/ADR5000 cells. The molecular docking of artemisinin dimer isoniazide with c-MYC revealed a good binding (lowest binding energy of −9.84 ± 0.3 kcal/mol) and a predicted inhibition constant (pKi) of 66.46 ± 29.5 nM, which was confirmed by microscale thermophoresis and MYC reporter cell assays. Furthermore, c-MYC expression was downregulated by this compound in microarray hybridization and Western blotting analyses. Finally, the artemisinin dimer isoniazide modulated the expression of autophagy markers (LC3B and p62) and the DNA damage marker pH2AX, indicating the stimulation of both autophagy and DNA damage, respectively. Additionally, DNA double-strand breaks were observed in the alkaline comet assay. DNA damage, apoptosis, and autophagy induction could be attributed to the inhibition of c-MYC by ELI-XXIII-98-2.
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Affiliation(s)
- Mohamed Elbadawi
- Department of Pharmaceutical Biology, Institute of Pharmaceutical and Biomedical Sciences, Johannes Gutenberg University-Mainz, 55128 Mainz, Germany
| | - Joelle C. Boulos
- Department of Pharmaceutical Biology, Institute of Pharmaceutical and Biomedical Sciences, Johannes Gutenberg University-Mainz, 55128 Mainz, Germany
| | - Mona Dawood
- Department of Pharmaceutical Biology, Institute of Pharmaceutical and Biomedical Sciences, Johannes Gutenberg University-Mainz, 55128 Mainz, Germany
- Department of Molecular Biology, Faculty of Medical Laboratory Sciences, Al-Neelain University, Khartoum 12702, Sudan
| | - Min Zhou
- Department of Pharmaceutical Biology, Institute of Pharmaceutical and Biomedical Sciences, Johannes Gutenberg University-Mainz, 55128 Mainz, Germany
| | - Waseem Gul
- ElSohly Laboratories, Inc., 5 Industrial Park Drive, Oxford, MS 38655, USA
| | - Mahmoud A. ElSohly
- ElSohly Laboratories, Inc., 5 Industrial Park Drive, Oxford, MS 38655, USA
| | - Sabine M. Klauck
- Division of Cancer Genome Research, German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ), German Cancer Consortium (DKTK), National Center for Tumor Diseases (NCT), 69120 Heidelberg, Germany
| | - Thomas Efferth
- Department of Pharmaceutical Biology, Institute of Pharmaceutical and Biomedical Sciences, Johannes Gutenberg University-Mainz, 55128 Mainz, Germany
- Correspondence:
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Cho Y, Jeong YJ, Song KH, Chung IK, Magae J, Kwon TK, Choi YH, Kwak JY, Chang YC. 4-O-Methylascochlorin-Mediated BNIP-3 Expression Controls the Balance of Apoptosis and Autophagy in Cervical Carcinoma Cells. Int J Mol Sci 2022; 23:ijms232315138. [PMID: 36499465 PMCID: PMC9736141 DOI: 10.3390/ijms232315138] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/20/2022] [Revised: 11/25/2022] [Accepted: 11/29/2022] [Indexed: 12/03/2022] Open
Abstract
4-O-methylascochlorin (MAC) is a 4-fourth carbon-substituted derivative of ascochlorin, a compound extracted from a phytopathogenic fungus Ascochyta viciae. MAC induces apoptosis and autophagy in various cancer cells, but the effects of MAC on apoptosis and autophagy in cervical cancer cells, as well as how the interaction between apoptosis and autophagy mediates the cellular anticancer effects are not known. Here, we investigated that MAC induced apoptotic cell death of cervical cancer cells without regulating the cell cycle and promoted autophagy by inhibiting the phosphorylation of serine-threonine kinase B (Akt), mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR), and 70-kDa ribosomal protein S6 kinase (p70S6K). Additional investigations suggested that Bcl-2/adenovirus E1B 19 kDa protein-interacting protein 3 (BNIP-3), but not Hypoxia-inducible factor 1 alpha (HIF-1α), is a key regulator of MAC-induced apoptosis and autophagy. BNIP-3 siRNA suppressed MAC-induced increases in cleaved- poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP) and LC3II expression. The pan-caspase inhibitor Z-VAD-FMK suppressed MAC-induced cell death and enhanced MAC-induced autophagy. The autophagy inhibitor chloroquine (CQ) enhanced MAC-mediated cell death by increasing BNIP-3 expression. These results indicate that MAC induces apoptosis to promote cell death and stimulates autophagy to promote cell survival by increasing BNIP-3 expression. This study also showed that co-treatment of cells with MAC and CQ further enhanced the death of cervical cancer cells.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yuna Cho
- Research Institute of Biomedical Engineering and Department of Cell Biology, School of Medicine, Catholic University of Daegu, Daegu 42472, Republic of Korea
| | - Yun-Jeong Jeong
- Research Institute of Biomedical Engineering and Department of Cell Biology, School of Medicine, Catholic University of Daegu, Daegu 42472, Republic of Korea
| | - Kwon-Ho Song
- Research Institute of Biomedical Engineering and Department of Cell Biology, School of Medicine, Catholic University of Daegu, Daegu 42472, Republic of Korea
| | - Il-Kyung Chung
- Department of Biotechnology, Catholic University of Daegu, Gyeongsan-Si 38430, Republic of Korea
| | - Junji Magae
- Magae Bioscience Institute, 49-4 Fujimidai, Tsukuba 300-1263, Japan
| | - Taeg Kyu Kwon
- Department of Immunology, School of Medicine, Keimyung University, Daegu 42601, Republic of Korea
| | - Yung-Hyun Choi
- Department of Biochemistry, Dong-eui University College of Korean Medicine, Busan 47227, Republic of Korea
| | - Jong-Young Kwak
- Department of Pharmacology, School of Medicine, Ajou University, Suwon 16499, Republic of Korea
| | - Young-Chae Chang
- Research Institute of Biomedical Engineering and Department of Cell Biology, School of Medicine, Catholic University of Daegu, Daegu 42472, Republic of Korea
- Correspondence:
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Sriratanasak N, Wattanathana W, Chanvorachote P. 6,6′-((Methylazanedyl)bis(methylene))bis(2,4-dimethylphenol) Induces Autophagic Associated Cell Death through mTOR-Mediated Autophagy in Lung Cancer. Molecules 2022; 27:molecules27196230. [PMID: 36234769 PMCID: PMC9572635 DOI: 10.3390/molecules27196230] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/08/2022] [Revised: 09/07/2022] [Accepted: 09/19/2022] [Indexed: 01/18/2023] Open
Abstract
Autophagy is the multistep mechanism for the elimination of damaged organelles and misfolded proteins. This mechanism is preceded and may induce other program cell deaths such as apoptosis. This study unraveled the potential pharmacological effect of 24MD in inducing the autophagy of lung cancer cells. Results showed that 24MD was concomitant with autophagy induction, indicating by autophagosome staining and the induction of ATG5, ATG7 and ubiquitinated protein, p62 expression after 12-h treatment. LC3-I was strongly conversed to LC3-II, and p62 was downregulated after 24-h treatment. The apoptosis-inducing activity was found after 48-h treatment as indicated by annexin V-FITC/propidium iodide staining and the activation of caspase-3. From a mechanistic perspective, 24-h treatment of 24MD at 60 μM substantially downregulated p-mTOR. Meanwhile, p-PI3K and p-Akt were also suppressed by 24MD at concentrations of 80 and 100 μM, respectively. We further confirmed m-TOR-mediated autophagic activity by comparing the effect of 24MD with rapamycin, a potent standard mTOR1 inhibitor through Western blot and immunofluorescence assays. Although 24MD could not suppress p-mTOR as much as rapamycin, the combination of rapamycin and 24MD could increase the mTOR suppressive activity and LC3 activation. Changing the substituent groups (R groups) from dimethylphenol to ethylphenol in EMD or changing methylazanedyl to cyclohexylazanedyl in 24CD could only induce apoptosis activity but not autophagic inducing activity. We identified 24MD as a novel compound targeting autophagic cell death by affecting mTOR-mediated autophagy.
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Affiliation(s)
- Nicharat Sriratanasak
- Department of Pharmacology and Physiology, Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Bangkok 10330, Thailand
- Center of Excellence in Cancer Cell and Molecular Biology, Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok 10330, Thailand
| | - Worawat Wattanathana
- Department of Materials Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Kasetsart University, Ladyao, Chatuchak, Bangkok 10900, Thailand
| | - Pithi Chanvorachote
- Department of Pharmacology and Physiology, Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Bangkok 10330, Thailand
- Center of Excellence in Cancer Cell and Molecular Biology, Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok 10330, Thailand
- Correspondence:
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Suppression of proteasome induces apoptosis in APL cells and increases chemo-sensitivity to arsenic trioxide: Proposing a perception in APL treatment. Cancer Treat Res Commun 2021; 26:100284. [PMID: 33387871 DOI: 10.1016/j.ctarc.2020.100284] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/19/2020] [Revised: 11/26/2020] [Accepted: 12/08/2020] [Indexed: 11/23/2022]
Abstract
In the last three decades, the pathogenesis of acute promyelocytic leukemia (APL) has been mostly studied with regard to the oncogenic role of PML/RAR fusion protein; however, the latest discoveries have stated that the concerns with the treatment of APL patients would not be resolved until the role of aberrant networks is overlooked. The present study was designed to evaluate the anti-cancer property of second-generation of the proteasome inhibitors carfilzomib (CFZ) on APL-derived NB4 cells. Our results showed that pharmacologic targeting of proteasome in NB4 reduced the proliferative rate of malignant cells through a c-Myc-mediated G2/M cell cycle arrest. Moreover, we found that the suppression of proteasome was coupled with the induction of apoptotic NB4 cell death, which is probably mediated through down-regulation of anti-apoptotic target genes. Interestingly, our results suggested that the suppression of the autophagy system using chloroquine could serve as a mechanism through which the cytotoxicity of CFZ in APL cells was ameliorated. Finally, and consistent with the favorable efficacy of single agent of CFZ, we also noted an intensifying effect of the inhibitor on the anti-leukemic activity of arsenic trioxide (ATO) when it was used in combination. Overall, this study suggests that pharmaceutical targeting of proteasome using CFZ, either as a single agent or in combination with ATO, could be a promising mechanism through which the obstacle on the way of APL would be tackled; however, further investigations are needed to determine the advantages of the inhibitor in clinical applications.
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Reduced expression of dMyc mitigates TauV337M mediated neurotoxicity by preventing the Tau hyperphosphorylation and inducing autophagy in Drosophila. Neurosci Lett 2020; 715:134622. [DOI: 10.1016/j.neulet.2019.134622] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/11/2019] [Revised: 10/30/2019] [Accepted: 11/08/2019] [Indexed: 12/16/2022]
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