Secukinumab plays a synergistic role with starvation therapy in promoting autophagic cell death of hepatocellular carcinoma via inhibiting IL-17A-increased BCL2 level

It is known that IL-17A inhibits autophagy of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) cells, thus contributing to the carcinogenesis of HCC. Starvation therapy can promote the autophagic death of HCC cells by blocking the nutrition supply. The purpose of this study was to explore whether the pharmacological antagonist of IL-17A, secukinumab, and starvation therapy have a synergistic effect on the autophagic cell death of HCC. Here, it could be observed that compared with serum-free condition, the combination of secukinumab and serum-free status better promoted autophagy (observed by LC3 conversion rate, p62 protein expression and the formation of autophagosomes), and more significantly inhibited the survival and function (observed by Trypan blue staining, CCK-8, Transwell, and scratch assays) in HCC HepG2 cells. Moreover, secukinumab significantly decreased BCL2 protein expression under serum-normal and serum-free conditions. However, both the addition of recombinant IL-17A and overexpression of BCL2 blocked the regulation of secukinumab on the survival and autophagy in HepG2 cells. Nude mice experiments demonstrated that compared to the lenvatinib-alone group, the combination group of lenvatinib and secukinumab better inhibited the in vivo tumorigenesis of HepG2 cells and enhanced autophagy in xenotumor tissues. Furthermore, secukinumab significantly decreased BCL2 protein expression in xenotumor tissues without or with lenvatinib application. In conclusion, the antagonism of IL-17A with secukinumab, due to the upregulation on BCL2-related autophagic cell death, can cooperate with starvation therapy in inhibiting HCC carcinogenesis. Our data suggested that secukinumab can become an effective adjuvant for the treatment of HCC.

CD142 promotes trophoblast cell migration by inhibiting BCL2-related autophagic degradation of IL-8

The maintenance of migration of trophoblast cells is beneficial to pregnancy, and its weakening can lead to preeclampsia (PE). CD142 is considered as a classical motility-promoting factor. Our research aimed to explore the role of CD142 in trophoblast cell migration and potential mechanism. Through fluorescence-activated cell sorting (FACS) and gene transduction assays, CD142 expression levels of mouse trophoblast cell lines were upregulated and downregulated respectively. Then, the migratory level was detected through Transwell assays in different groups of trophoblast cells. The corresponding chemokines were screened by ELISA in different sorted trophoblast cells. Based on gene overexpression and knockdown assays, the production mode of identified valuable chemokine was analyzed by detecting gene and protein expression in trophoblast cells. Finally, the contribution of autophagy response to specific chemokine regulated by CD142 was explored by combining different groups of cells and autophagy regulators. Our results showed that both CD142 positive sorting and CD142 overexpression promoted the migratory ability of trophoblast cells, and trophoblast cells with the highest level of CD142 had the strongest migratory ability. In addition, CD142+ cells contained the highest level of IL-8. Consistently, CD142 overexpression promoted IL-8 protein expression in trophoblast cells while CD142 silencing was contrary. However, both CD142 overexpression and CD142 silencing did not affect IL-8 mRNA expression. Moreover, both CD142+ and CD142-overexpressed cells showed higher BCL2 protein expression and poorer autophagic activity. Importantly, autophagy activation with TAT-Beclin1 recovered the increased IL-8 protein expression in CD142+ cells. Obviously, the migratory ability of CD142+ cells inhibited by TAT-Beclin1 was recovered by the addition of IL-8 recombinant factor. In conclusion, CD142 inhibits the degradation of IL-8 through the inhibition of BCL2-Beclin1-autophagy signal transduction, thereby promoting the migration of trophoblast cells.