Sialic Acid-Binding Lectin from Bullfrog Eggs Exhibits an Anti-Tumor Effect Against Breast Cancer Cells Including Triple-Negative Phenotype Cells

A Comparative Study of Oncolytic Vaccinia Viruses Harboring Different Marine Lectins in Breast Cancer Cells

Our previous studies demonstrated that arming vaccinia viruses with marine lectins enhanced the antitumor efficacy in several cancer cells. This study aims to compare the efficacy of oncolytic vaccinia viruses harboring Tachypleus tridentatus lectin (oncoVV-TTL), Aphrocallistes vastus lectin (oncoVV-AVL), white-spotted charr lectin (oncoVV-WCL), and Asterina pectinifera lectin (oncoVV-APL) in breast cancer cells (BC). These results indicated that oncoVV-AVL elicited the highest anti-tumor effect, followed by oncoVV-APL, while oncoVV-TTL and oncoVV-WCL had lower effects in BC. Further studies showed that apoptosis and replication may work together to enhance the cytotoxicity of oncoVV-lectins in a cell-type dependent manner. TTL/AVL/APL/WCL may mediate multiple pathways, including ERK, JNK, Hippo, and PI3K pathways, to promote oncoVV replication in MDA-MB-231 cells. In contrast, these pathways did not affect oncoVV-TTL/AVL/APL/WCL replication in MCF-7 cells, suggesting that the mechanisms of recombinant viruses in MCF-7 (ER⁺, PR⁺) and MDA-MB-231 (TNBC) cells were significantly different. Based on this study, we hypothesized that ER or PR may be responsible for the differences in promoting viral replication and inducing apoptosis between MCF-7 and MDA-MB-231 cells, but the specific mechanism needs to be further explored. In addition, small-molecule drugs targeting key cellular signaling pathways, including MAPK, PI3K/Akt, and Hippo, could be conjunction with oncoVV-AVL to promote breast cancer therapy, and key pathway factors in the JNK and PI3K pathways may be related to the efficacy of oncoVV-APL/TTL/WCL. This study provides a basis for applying oncolytic vaccinia virus in breast carcinoma.

[Basic Research on Bullfrog Egg-derived Sialic Acid-binding Lectin for Cancer Treatment]

Sialic acid-binding lectin from Rana catesbeiana (cSBL) is a multifunctional protein with both lectin and ribonuclease activity and is, therefore, called a leczyme. It exerts cancer cell-selective antitumor effects on a variety of cancer cells in vitro and in vivo under conditions where no undesired side effects are observed. cSBL elicits antitumor effects by degrading cellular RNA and subsequently inducing apoptosis via a pathway mediated by mitochondria and endoplasmic reticulum stress. Further, it exerts synergistic antitumor effects with other molecules such as tumor necrosis factor-related apoptosis-inducing ligand and pemetrexed. Recent studies have revealed that long-term treatment of cancer cells with cSBL causes significant pleiotropic changes in the expression profiles of several genes, including multiple genes involved in metabolic pathways. Furthermore, cSBL reduces the expression of some cancer-related molecules such as human epidermal growth factor receptors, aldo-keto reductase 1B10, and ATP-binding cassette transporter C2. The information described above is expected to lead to useful applications, such as effective regimens comprising cSBL and other drugs. These findings reveal favorable properties of cSBL as an anticancer drug, which may contribute to the development of new therapeutic strategies for cancer treatment.

Transcriptomic alterations in malignant pleural mesothelioma cells in response to long‑term treatment with bullfrog sialic acid‑binding lectin

Malignant pleural mesothelioma (MPM) is a universally lethal type of cancer that is increasing in incidence worldwide; therefore, the development of new drugs for MPM is an urgent task. Bullfrog sialic acid-binding lectin (cSBL) is a multifunctional protein that has carbohydrate-binding and ribonuclease activities. cSBL exerts marked antitumor activity against numerous types of cancer cells, with low toxicity to normal cells. Although in vitro and in vivo studies revealed that cSBL was effective against MPM, the mechanism by which cSBL exerts antitumor effects is not fully understood. To further understand the mechanism of action of cSBL, the present study aimed to identify the key molecules whose expression was affected by cSBL. The present study established cSBL-resistant MPM cells. Microarray analyses revealed that there were significant pleiotropic changes in the expression profiles of several genes, including multiple genes involved in metabolic pathways in cSBL-resistant cells. Furthermore, the expression of some members of the aldo-keto reductase family was revealed to be markedly downregulated in these cells. Among these, it was particularly interesting that cSBL action reduced the level of AKR1B10, which has been reported as a biomarker candidate for MPM prognosis. These findings revealed novel aspects of the effect of cSBL, which may contribute to the development of new therapeutic strategies for MPM.

Antitumor Potential of Marine and Freshwater Lectins

Often, even the most effective antineoplastic drugs currently used in clinic do not efficiently allow complete healing due to the related toxicity. The reason for the toxicity lies in the lack of selectivity for cancer cells of the vast majority of anticancer agents. Thus, the need for new potent anticancer compounds characterized by a better toxicological profile is compelling. Lectins belong to a particular class of non-immunogenic glycoproteins and have the characteristics to selectively bind specific sugar sequences on the surface of cells. This property is exploited to exclusively bind cancer cells and exert antitumor activity through the induction of different forms of regulated cell death and the inhibition of cancer cell proliferation. Thanks to the extraordinary biodiversity, marine environments represent a unique source of active natural compounds with anticancer potential. Several marine and freshwater organisms, ranging from the simplest alga to the most complex vertebrate, are amazingly enriched in these proteins. Remarkably, all studies gathered in this review show the impressive anticancer effect of each studied marine lectin combined with irrelevant toxicity in vitro and in vivo and pave the way to design clinical trials to assess the real antineoplastic potential of these promising proteins. It provides a concise and precise description of the experimental results, their interpretation as well as the experimental conclusions that can be drawn.

Targeted imaging and targeted therapy of breast cancer cells via fluorescent double template-imprinted polymer coated silicon nanoparticles by an epitope approach

Targeting is vital for precise positioning and efficient therapy, and integrated platforms for diagnosis and therapy have attracted more and more attention. Herein, we established dual-template molecularly imprinted polymer (MIP) coated fluorescent silicon nanoparticles (Si NPs) by using the linear peptide of the extracellular region of human epidermal growth factor receptor-2 (HER2) and adopting doxorubicin (DOX) as templates for targeted imaging and targeted therapy. Benefiting from the epitope imprinting approach, the imprinted sites generated by peptides on the MIP surface can be employed for recognizing the corresponding protein, which allowed the MIP to specifically and actively target HER2-positive breast cancer cells. Because of its ability to identify breast cancer cells, the MIP was applied for targeted fluorescence imaging by taking advantage of the excellent fluorescence properties of Si NPs, and the DOX-loaded MIP (MIP@DOX) can act as a therapeutic probe to effectively target and kill breast cancer cells. In fluorescence images, the targeting of the MIP promoted more uptake of the nanoparticles by cells than the non-imprinted polymer (NIP), so HER2-positive breast cancer cells incubated with the MIP exhibited stronger fluorescence, and there was no significant difference in fluorescence when HER2-negative cells and normal cells were respectively hatched with the MIP and NIP. Importantly, the cell viability was evaluated to demonstrate targeted accumulation and therapy of MIP@DOX for breast cancer cells. The nanoplatform for diagnosis and therapy combined the high sensitivity of fluorescence with the high selectivity of the molecular imprinting technique, which holds vital potential in targeted imaging and targeted therapy in vitro.

Reaction Systems and Synchronous Digital Circuits

A reaction system is a modeling framework for investigating the functioning of the living cell, focused on capturing cause-effect relationships in biochemical environments. Biochemical processes in this framework are seen to interact with each other by producing the ingredients enabling and/or inhibiting other reactions. They can also be influenced by the environment seen as a systematic driver of the processes through the ingredients brought into the cellular environment. In this paper, the first attempt is made to implement reaction systems in the hardware. We first show a tight relation between reaction systems and synchronous digital circuits, generally used for digital electronics design. We describe the algorithms allowing us to translate one model to the other one, while keeping the same behavior and similar size. We also develop a compiler translating a reaction systems description into hardware circuit description using field-programming gate arrays (FPGA) technology, leading to high performance, hardware-based simulations of reaction systems. This work also opens a novel interesting perspective of analyzing the behavior of biological systems using established industrial tools from electronic circuits design.