Menadione : sodium orthovanadate combination eliminates and inhibits migration of detached cancer cells.

Exposure of cancer cells to anticancer agents in cultures induces detachment of cells that are usually considered dead. These drug-induced detached cells (D-IDCs) may represent a clinical problem for chemotherapy since they may survive anoikis, enter the circulation, invade other tissues and resume proliferation, creating a metastasis, especially in tissues where the bioavailability of anticancer agents is not enough to eliminate all cancer cells. In this study we evaluated the antiproliferative effect of menadione : sodium orthovanadate (M : SO) combination on A549 lung cancer cells as well as the ability of M : SO to induce cell detachment. In addition, we followed the fate and chemosensitivity of M : SO-induced detached cells. Using transwell chambers, we found that a fraction of the M : SO-induced detached cells were viable and, furthermore, were able to migrate, re-attach, and resume proliferation when re-incubated in drug-free media. The total elimination of A549 detachment-resistant cells and M : SO-induced detached cells were successfully eliminated by equivalent M : SO concentration (17.5 µM : 17.5 µM). Thus, M : SO prevented cell migration. Similar results were obtained on DBTRG.05MG human glioma cells. Our data guarantee further studies to evaluate the in vivo occurrence of D-IDCs, their implications for invasiveness and metastasis and their sensitivity to anticancer drugs.

Pankiller effect of prolonged exposure to menadione on glioma cells: potentiation by vitamin C.

Menadione (Vitamin K3) has anti-tumoral effects against a wide range of cancer cells. Its potential toxicity to normal cells and narrow therapeutic range limit its use as single agent but in combination with radiation or other anti-neoplastic agents can be of therapeutic use. In this paper, we first evaluated the early (within 3 h) effect of menadione on ongoing DNA replication. In normal rat cerebral cortex mini-units menadione showed an age dependent anti-proliferative effect. In tissue mini-units prepared from newborn rats, menadione inhibited ongoing DNA replication with an IC (50) of approximately 10 µM but 50 µM had no effect on mini-units from prepared adult rat tissue. The effect of short (72 h) and prolonged exposure (1-2 weeks) to menadione alone in the DBTRG.05MG human glioma cells line and in combination with vitamin C was studied. After short period of exposure data show that menadione alone or in combination with vitamin C provided similar concentration-response curves (and IC(50) values). Prolonged exposure to these drugs was evaluated by their ability to kill 100% of glioma cells and prevent regrowth when cells are re-incubated in drug-free media. In this long-term assay, menadione:vitamin C at a ratio 1:100 showed higher anti-proliferative activity when compared to each drug alone and allowed to reduce each drug concentration between 2.5 to 5-fold. Similar anti-proliferative effect was demonstrated in 8 patient derived glioblastoma cell cultures. Our data should be able to encourage further advanced studies on animal models to evaluate the potential use of this combination therapy for glioma treatment.

Rapid inhibition of ongoing DNA synthesis in human glioma tissue by genistein.

The effect of genistein, a protein tyrosine kinase and topoisomerase II inhibitor, on the DNA synthesis rate was studied in 21 human glioma specimens obtained at routine craniotomies for tumor resection. Ongoing DNA synthesis rate was determined by using a method based on the generation of tissue mini-units immediately after tumor resection and short incubation time (0-120 min) with [methyl-3H]-thymidine. A 9-77% inhibition of DNA synthesis rate by 100 microM genistein was observed in 18/21 of the glioma specimens. In these cases, the average percentage of inhibition was 55+/-20% (mean+/-SD, P<0.0001, Student's t-test) and the inhibitory effect was >50% in 12/18 of the cases. In 3 cases genistein increased the DNA synthesis rate. The inhibitory effect of genistein had a short-time onset and was concentration-dependent. Additional experiments in 4 cases showed that herbimycin A had no effect on DNA synthesis rate while etoposide inhibited similarly to that of genistein. Our results suggest that the effect of genistein on DNA synthesis rate in gliomas is independent of protein kinase inhibition and probably mediated by topoisomerase II inhibition. In the RG2 model, 50 microM genistein inhibited ongoing DNA synthesis in glioma cells with little or no effect in normal tissue. The data also encourage further investigations on the therapeutic potential of genistein for gliomas.