Ferroptosis is induced following siramesine and lapatinib treatment of breast cancer cells.

Ferroptosis is an iron-dependent, oxidative cell death, and is distinct from apoptosis, necrosis and autophagy. In this study, we demonstrated that lysosome disrupting agent, siramesine and a tyrosine kinase inhibitor, lapatinib synergistically induced cell death and reactive oxygen species (ROS) in MDA MB 231, MCF-7, ZR-75 and SKBr3 breast cancer cells over a 24 h time course. Furthermore, the iron chelator deferoxamine (DFO) significantly reduced cytosolic ROS and cell death following treatment with siramesine and lapatinib. Furthermore, we determined that FeCl3 levels were elevated in cells treated with siramesine and lapatinib indicating an iron-dependent cell death, ferroptosis. To confirm this, we treated cells with a potent inhibitor of ferroptosis, ferrastatin-1 that effectively inhibited cell death following siramesine and lapatinib treatment. The increase levels of iron could be due to changes in iron transport. We found that the expression of transferrin, which is responsible for the transport of iron into cells, is increased following treatment with lapatinib alone or in combination with siramesine. Knocking down of transferrin resulted in decreased cell death and ROS after treatment. In addition, ferroportin-1 (FPN) is an iron transport protein, responsible for removal of iron from cells. We found its expression is decreased after treatment with siramesine alone or in combination with lapatinib. Overexpression FPN resulted in decreased ROS and cell death whereas knockdown of FPN increased cell death after siramesine and lapatinib treatment. This indicates a novel induction of ferroptosis through altered iron regulation by treating breast cancer cells with a lysosome disruptor and a tyrosine kinase inhibitor.

Defects in base excision repair combined with elevated intracellular dCTP levels dramatically reduce mutation induction in yeast by ethyl methanesulfonate and N-methyl-N'-nitro-N-nitrosoguanidine.

Previously, we determined that elimination of deoxycytidylate (dCMP) deaminase (DCD1) in the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae increases the intracellular dCTP:dTTP ratio and reduces the induction of G x C --> A x T transitions in the SUP4-o gene by ethyl methanesulfonate (EMS) and N-methyl-N'-nitro-N-nitrosoguanidine (MNNG). Simultaneously, the G x C --> C x G transversion frequency rises substantially. We attributed the first response to dCTP outcompeting dTTP for incorporation opposite O6-alkylguanine, and the second outcome to the increased dCTP pool causing error-prone repair of apurinic (AP) sites resulting from the removal or lability of N7-alkylguanine. To test the latter hypothesis, we used isogenic dcd1 strains deleted for either of two genes (MAG1: 3-methyladenine glycosylase; APN1: apurinic endonuclease) involved in the repair of N7-alkylguanine. In these backgrounds, EMS or MNNG induction of total SUP4-o mutations, G x C --> A x T transitions and G x C --> C x G transversions were reduced by >98%, >97%, and >80%, respectively. Mutation frequencies in the dcd1 apn1 strain were close to those for spontaneous mutagenesis in the wild-type parent. These findings argue that misincorporation of dCTP during repair of alkylation-induced AP sites is responsible for the increased G x C --> C x G transversion frequency in the dcd1 strain treated with EMS or MNNG. The data also demonstrate that defective repair of AP sites coupled with an elevated dCTP:dTTP ratio eliminates most EMS and MNNG mutagenesis. In addition, the results point to a role for AP sites in the production of some EMS- and MNNG-induced G x C --> A x T transitions as well as other substitutions in the dcd1 strain.

BNIP3 acts as transcriptional repressor of death receptor-5 expression and prevents TRAIL-induced cell death in gliomas.

Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) is the most common and malignant brain tumor, and current treatment modalities such as surgical resection, adjuvant radiotherapy and temozolomide (TMZ) chemotherapy are ineffective. Tumor necrosis factor-related apoptosis-inducing ligand (TRAIL) is a novel cancer therapeutic agent for GBM because of its capability of inducing apoptosis in glioma cells. Unfortunately, the majority of glioma cells are resistant to TRAIL-induced apoptosis. The Bcl-2 nineteen kilodalton interacting protein (BNIP3) is a pro-cell death BH3-only member of the Bcl-2 family that is one of the highest expressed genes in hypoxic regions of GBM tumors. We previously found that BNIP3 is localized to the nucleus in GBM tumors and suppresses cell death in glioma cells. Herein, we have discovered when BNIP3 nuclear expression is knockdown in glioma cell lines and in normal mouse astrocytes, TRAIL and its death receptor, death receptor-5 (DR5) expression is increased. In addition, when nuclear BNIP3 expression is increased, the amount of TRAIL-induced apoptosis is reduced. Using a streptavidin pull-down assay, we found that BNIP3 binds to the DR5 promoter and nuclear BNIP3 binds to the DR5 promoter. Furthermore, nuclear BNIP3 expression in GBM tumors correlates with decreased DR5 expression. Taken together, we have discovered a novel transcriptional repression function for BNIP3 conferring a TRAIL resistance in glioma cells.

Epidermal growth factor regulates Mcl-1 expression through the MAPK-Elk-1 signalling pathway contributing to cell survival in breast cancer.

Myeloid cell leukaemia-1 (Mcl-1) is an anti-apoptotic member of the Bcl-2 family that is elevated in a variety of tumour types including breast cancer. In breast tumours, increased Mcl-1 expression correlates with high tumour grade and poor patient survival. We have previously demonstrated that Her-2 levels correspond to increased Mcl-1 expression in breast tumours. Epidermal growth factor (EGF) receptor signalling is frequently deregulated in breast cancer and leads to increased proliferation and survival. Herein, we determined the critical downstream signals responsible for the EGF mediated increase of Mcl-1 and their role in cell survival. We found that both Mcl-1 mRNA and protein levels are rapidly induced upon stimulation with EGF. Promoter analysis revealed that an Elk-1 transcription factor-binding site is critical for EGF activation of the Mcl-1 promoter. Furthermore, we found that knockdown of Elk-1 or inhibition of the Erk signalling pathway was sufficient to block EGF upregulation of Mcl-1 and EGF mediated cell survival. Using chromatin immunoprecipitation and biotin labelled probes of the Mcl-1 promoter, we found that Elk-1 and serum response factor are bound to the promoter after EGF stimulation. To determine whether Mcl-1 confers a survival advantage, we found that knockdown of Mcl-1 expression increased apoptosis whereas overexpression of Mcl-1 inhibited drug induced cell death. In human breast tumours, we found a correlation between phosphorylated Elk-1 and Mcl-1 protein levels. These results indicate that the EGF induced activation of Elk-1 is an important mediator of Mcl-1 expression and cell survival and therefore a potential therapeutic target in breast cancer.

Specificity of the mutator caused by deletion of the yeast structural gene (APN1) for the major apurinic endonuclease.

The loss of bases from cellular DNA occurs via both spontaneous and mutagen-induced reactions. The resulting apurinic/apyrimidinic (AP) sites are cytotoxic and mutagenic but are counteracted by repair initiated by AP endonucleases. Previously, in vitro and bacterial transfection studies suggested that AP sites often prompt insertion of dAMP residues during replication, the A-rule. Dissimilar results have been obtained by transfecting DNA into eukaryotic cells. It seemed possible that these differences might be due to idiosyncrasies of transfection or aberrant replication of the transecting DNA. The observation that AP endonuclease-deficient strains of the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae have elevated spontaneous mutation rates allowed us to determine the mutational specificity of endogenously generated AP sites in nuclear DNA. With the yeast SUP4-o gene as a mutational target, we found that a deficiency in the major yeast AP endonuclease, Apn1, provoked mainly single base-pair substitution; the rate of transposon Ty insertion was also enhanced. The rate of transversion to a G.C pair was increased 10-fold in Apn1-deficient yeast, including a 59-fold increase in the rate of A.T-->C.G events. In contrast, the rate of transversion to an A.T pair was increased by only 3-fold. A deficiency in N3-methyladenine glycosylase offset these substitution rate increases, indicating that they are due primarily to AP sites resulting from glycosylase action. Thus, the A-rule does not seem to apply to the mutagenic processing of endogenous abasic sites in S. cerevisiae. Other results presented here show that AP endonuclease-deficient Escherichia coli exhibit a mutator phenotype consistent with the A-rule.

Tumor necrosis factor-related apoptosis inducing ligand (TRAIL) up-regulates death receptor 5 (DR5) mediated by NFkappaB activation in epithelial derived cell lines.

Tumor necrosis factor-related apoptosis inducing ligand (TRAIL/APO-2L) activates nuclear factor kappaB (NFkappaB). This activation is regulated by the recruitment of an adaptor protein Fas associating death domain (FADD) to TRAIL death receptors, death receptor 4 (DR4, TRAIL-R1) and death receptor 5 (DR5 TRAIL-R2). This leads to recruitment of caspase 8 and receptor interacting protein (RIP) to the receptor complex. Upon recruitment of caspase 8 and RIP, NFkappaB inducing kinase (NIK) becomes activated causing NFkappaB activation. The role of TRAIL induced NFkappaB activation in epithelial cells is unknown. Herein we demonstrate that TRAIL increases expression of DR5 in human embryonic kidney (HEK) 293, MCF-7 and MDA MB 231 epithelial cell lines while DR4 expression remains unchanged. Blockage of NFkappaB activation either by expression of dominant negative IkappaB or treatment with proteasome inhibitor lactacystin eliminates TRAIL induced DR5 expression. Expression of FADD dominant negative in HEK 293 cells that prevents the recruitment of caspase 8 and RIP to TRAIL death receptors also eliminates this increase. By over expression of the p65 subunit of NFkappaB that increases NFkappaB transcriptional activity, DR5 expression was increased compared to vector alone expressing cells. By blocking TRAIL induced NFkappaB activation, the sensitivity of cells to undergo TRAIL induced apoptosis was significantly decreased. Conversely, the amount of TRAIL induced apoptosis was increased in HEK 293 cells over expressing p65 subunit of NFkappaB. Finally blockage of NFkappaB activation eliminates the synergistic apoptotic response of TRAIL and etoposide. Thus, TRAIL mediated NFkappaB activation increases DR5 expression thereby amplifying the apoptotic response of TRAIL in epithelial derived cells.