Extracellular matrix proteins protect human HT1080 cells against the antimigratory effect of doxorubicin

Impact of Chemotherapeutic Stress Depends on The Nature of Breast Cancer Spheroid and Induce Behavioral Plasticity to Resistant Population

Cellular or tumor dormancy, identified recently as one of the main reasons behind post-therapy recurrence, can be caused by diverse reasons. Chemotherapy has recently been recognized as one of such reasons. However, in-depth studies of chemotherapy-induced dormancy are lacking due to the absence of an in vitro human-relevant model tailor-made for such a scenario. This report utilized multicellular breast cancer spheroid to create a primary platform for establishing a chemotherapy-induced dormancy model. It is observed that extreme chemotherapeutic stress affects invasive and non-invasive spheroids differently. Non-invasive spheroids exhibit more resilience and maintain viability and migrational ability, while invasive spheroids display heightened susceptibility and improved tumorigenic capacity. Heterogenous spheroids exhibit increased tumorigenic capacity while show minimal survival ability. Further probing of chemotherapeutically dormant spheroids is needed to understand the molecular mechanism and identify dormancy-related markers to achieve therapeutic success in the future.

The Measurement and Analysis of Impedance Response of HeLa Cells to Distinct Chemotherapy Drugs

Electric cell–substrate impedance sensing exhibits a real-time and label-free feature to monitor the response of cells stimulated by various biochemical and mechanical signals. Alterations in the currents passing through the cell–electrode system characterize the impedance variations of cells. The impedance responses of HeLa cells under distinct chemotherapy drugs combine the effects of cell proliferation and cell–substrate adhesion. Optimal interdigitated electrodes were selected to explore the impedance responses of HeLa cells. Measurements of impedance of cells in response to three widely used chemotherapy drugs in clinical practice, namely cisplatin, doxorubicin, 5-fluorouracil, were performed. The results demonstrated that distinct impedance responses of HeLa cells to drugs were exhibited and a decrease in measured impedance was observed after drug treatment, accompanied by alterations in the distribution and intensity of the adhesion-related protein vinculin and the rate of cell proliferation. The link between the impedance profiles of HeLa cells and their biological functions was developed based on the circuit model. This study demonstrated the weights of cell proliferation and adhesion of HeLa cells under the treatments of DDP, DOX, and 5-FU, resulted in distinct impedance responses of cells, providing an impedance-based evaluation methodology for cervical cancer treatment.

Current diagnostics and treatment of fibrosarcoma -perspectives for future therapeutic targets and strategies

Adult-type fibrosarcoma is a rare and highly aggressive subtype of soft tissue sarcomas. Due to the existence of other spindle-cell shaped sarcomas, its diagnosis is always one of exclusion. The likelihood of misdiagnoses between similar tumour entities is high, and often leads to inappropriate tumour treatment. We summarize here the main features of fibrosarcoma. When fibrosarcoma is appropriately diagnosed, the patient`s overall prognosis is generally quite poor. Fibrosarcoma is characterized by its low sensitivity towards radio- and chemotherapy as well as by its high rate of tumour recurrences. Thus it is important to identify new methods to improve treatment of this tumour entity. We discuss some promising new directions in fibrosarcoma research, specifically focusing on more effective targeting of the tumour microenvironment. Communication between tumour cells and their surrounding stromal tissue play a crucial role in cancer progression, invasion, metastasis and chemosensitivity. The therapeutic potential of targeting the tumour microenvironment is addressed.

Cytoskeletal reorganization and cell death in mitoxantrone-treated lung cancer cells

The aim of this study was to investigate the cytotoxic effect of mitoxantrone on two human non-small cell lung cancer cell lines, A549 (p53+) and H1299 (p53-). To our knowledge, this is the first study to evaluate the impact of MXT on the organization of cytoskeletal proteins. Analyses were performed using fluorescence and transmission electron microscopy, spectrophotometric techniques, flow cytometry and Western blotting. It was shown that H1299 cells are significantly more sensitive to mitoxantrone than the A549 cell line, and that the growth-inhibitory effect of the drug is dose-dependent only after longer incubation. The observed presence of ring-like microtubule structures and mitochondria surrounding the nuclei of H1299 cells could be a manifestation of increased tubulin polymerization requiring large amounts of energy, whereas the loss of actin stress fibers was presumably not the cause but rather the consequence of cell death induction. Treatment with mitoxantrone also led to the appearance of structures resembling agresomes in H1299 cells and to nucleolar segregation in both cell lines. It was demonstrated that cells arrested in the S phase were most susceptible to cell death induction, and that triggered intracellular changes led mainly to apoptosis. High concentrations induced necrosis and some H1299 cells exhibited morphological features of mitotic catastrophe.

Critical analysis of 3-D organoid in vitro cell culture models for high-throughput drug candidate toxicity assessments

Drug failure due to toxicity indicators remains among the primary reasons for staggering drug attrition rates during clinical studies and post-marketing surveillance. Broader validation and use of next-generation 3-D improved cell culture models are expected to improve predictive power and effectiveness of drug toxicological predictions. However, after decades of promising research significant gaps remain in our collective ability to extract quality human toxicity information from in vitro data using 3-D cell and tissue models. Issues, challenges and future directions for the field to improve drug assay predictive power and reliability of 3-D models are reviewed.

Extracellular matrix proteins modulate antimigratory and apoptotic effects of Doxorubicin

Anticancer drug resistance is a multifactorial process that includes acquired and de novo drug resistances. Acquired resistance develops during treatment, while de novo resistance is the primary way for tumor cells to escape chemotherapy. Tumor microenvironment has been recently shown to be one of the important factors contributing to de novo resistance and called environment-mediated drug resistance (EMDR). Two forms of EMDR have been described: soluble factor-mediated drug resistance (SFM-DR) and cell adhesion-mediated drug resistance (CAM-DR). Anthracyclines, among the most potent chemotherapeutic agents, are widely used in clinics against hematopoietic and solid tumors. Their main mechanism of action relies on the inhibition of topoisomerase I and/or II and the induction of apoptosis. Beyond this well-known antitumor activity, it has been recently demonstrated that anthracyclines may display potent anti-invasive effects when used at subtoxic concentrations. In this paper, we will describe two particular modes of EMDR by which microenvironment may influence tumor-cell response to one of these anthracyclines, doxorubicin. The first one considers the influence of type I collagen on the antimigratory effect of doxorubicin (CAM-DR). The second considers the protection of tumor cells by thrombospondin-I against doxorubicin-induced apoptosis (SFM-DR).

3D collagen type I matrix inhibits the antimigratory effect of doxorubicin

Background

The cell microenvironment, especially extracellular matrix proteins, plays an important role in tumor cell response to chemotherapeutic drugs. The present study was designed to investigate whether this microenvironment can influence the antimigratory effect of an anthracycline drug, doxorubicin, when tumor cells are grown in a matrix of type I collagen, a three-dimensional (3D) context which simulates a natural microenvironment.

Methods

To this purpose, we studied the migratory parameters, the integrin expression, and the activation state of focal adhesion kinase (FAK) and GTPase RhoA involved in the formation of focal adhesions and cell movement. These parameters were evaluated at non toxic concentrations which did not affect HT1080 cell proliferation.

Results

We show that while doxorubicin decreased cell migration properties by 70% in conventional two-dimensional (2D) culture, this effect was completely abolished in a 3D one. Regarding the impact of doxorubicin on the focal adhesion complexes, unlike in 2D systems, the data indicated that the drug neither affected β1 integrin expression nor the state of phosphorylation of FAK and RhoA.

Conclusion

This study suggests the lack of antiinvasive effect of doxorubicin in a 3D environment which is generally considered to better mimic the phenotypic behaviour of cells in vivo. Consistent with the previously shown resistance to the cytotoxic effect in a 3D context, our results highlight the importance of the matrix configuration on the tumor cell response to antiinvasive drugs.