Surface-expressed insulin receptors as well as IGF-I receptors both contribute to the mitogenic effects of human insulin and its analogues.

There is a medical need for new insulin analogues. Yet, molecular alterations to the insulin molecule can theoretically result in analogues with carcinogenic effects. Preclinical carcinogenicity risk assessment for insulin analogues rests to a large extent on mitogenicity assays in cell lines. We therefore optimized mitogenicity assay conditions for a panel of five cell lines. All cell lines expressed insulin receptors (IR), IGF-I receptors (IGF-IR) and hybrid receptors, and in all cell lines, insulin as well as the comparator compounds X10 and IGF-I caused phosphorylation of the IR as well as IGF-IR. Insulin exhibited mitogenicity EC(50) values in the single-digit nanomolar to picomolar range. We observed correlations across cell types between (i) mitogenic potency of insulin and IGF-IR/IR ratio, (ii) Akt phosphorylation and mitogenic potency and (iii) Akt phosphorylation and IR phosphorylation. Using siRNA-mediated knockdown of IR and IGF-IR, we observed that in HCT 116 cells the IR appeared dominant in driving the mitogenic response to insulin, whereas in MCF7 cells the IGF-IR appeared dominant in driving the mitogenic response to insulin. Together, our results show that the IR as well as IGF-IR may contribute to the mitogenic potency of insulin. While insulin was a more potent mitogen than IGF-I in cells expressing more IR than IGF-IR, the hyper-mitogenic insulin analogue X10 was a more potent mitogen than insulin across all cell types, supporting that the hyper-mitogenic effect of X10 involves the IR as well as the IGF-IR. These results are relevant for preclinical safety assessment of developmental insulin analogues.

Comparison of intracellular signalling by insulin and the hypermitogenic AspB10 analogue in MCF-7 breast adenocarcinoma cells.

We compared mitogenicity and intracellular signalling by human insulin and the AspB10 (X-10) human insulin analogue in MCF-7 human mammary adenocarcinoma cells. By flow analysis of phosphorylated histone H3 or cell cycle distributions, insulin and X-10 were mitogenic at physiologically relevant concentrations (2 nm to 74 pm range), with X-10 being approximately 3-fold more mitogenic than insulin. By western blotting with phospho-specific antibodies, insulin induced phosphorylation of IRS-1, Akt, p70S6K, S6 ribosomal protein, 4E-BP1, FoxO3a, FoxO1, p44/42 MAPK and the EGFR. Blocking with wortmannin, rapamycin and U0126 showed that these signalling events conformed to the canonical PI3K pathway. IRS-1 (Ser302) phosphorylation was abolished by wortmannin and rapamycin, suggesting a feedback from the PI3K pathway on insulin signalling. Compared with equimolar insulin, X-10 caused up to 2-fold higher phosphorylation of all proteins examined in this study. The phosphorylation sites that responded most strongly to insulin were not generally the same as those responding most strongly to X-10. In the PI3K pathway, the most X-10-sensitive protein localized to the translation-regulating arm (p70S6K), with FoxO3a and FoxO1 transcription factors showing a more comparable response to insulin and X-10. Using flow analysis, we confirmed the correlation between insulin-triggered translational activation in G0/G1 (S6 phosphorylation) and S-phase entry by MCF-7 cells. In summary, our findings implicate asymmetrical PI3K pathway activation and specifically stimulation of protein translation in the hypermitogenic effect of insulin analogues such as X-10. It remains to be shown whether these findings are relevant to other human mammary cancer cell types.

Synchronization in G0/G1 enhances the mitogenic response of cells overexpressing the human insulin receptor A isoform to insulin.

Evaluating mitogenic signaling specifically through the human insulin receptor (IR) is relevant for the preclinical safety assessment of developmental insulin analogs. It is known that overexpression of IR sensitizes cells to the mitogenic effects of insulin, but it is essentially unknown how mitogenic responses can be optimized to allow practical use of such recombinant cell lines for preclinical safety testing. We constitutively overexpressed the short isoform of the human insulin receptor (hIR-A, exon 11-negative) in L6 rat skeletal myoblasts. Because the mitogenic effect of growth factors such as insulin is expected to act in G0/G1, promoting S-phase entry, we developed a combined topoinhibition + serum deprivation strategy to explore the effect of G0/G1 synchronization as an independent parameter in the context of serum deprivation, the latter being routinely used to reduce background in mitogenicity assays. G0/G1 synchronization significantly improved the mitogenic responses of L6-hIR cells to insulin, measured by (3)H-thymidine incorporation. Comparison with the parental L6 cells using phospho-mitogen-activated protein kinase, phospho-AKT, as well as (3)H-thymidine incorporation end points supported that the majority of the mitogenic effect of insulin in L6-hIR cells was mediated by the overexpressed hIR-A. Using the optimized L6-hIR assay, we found that the X-10 insulin analog was more mitogenic than native human insulin, supporting that X-10 exhibits increased mitogenic signaling through the hIR-A. In summary, this study provides the first demonstration that serum deprivation may not be sufficient, and G0/G1 synchronization may be required to obtain optimal responsiveness of hIR-overexpressing cell lines for preclinical safety testing.