Comprehensive Surfaceome Profiling to Identify and Validate Novel Cell-Surface Targets in Osteosarcoma.

Immunoconjugates targeting cell-surface antigens have demonstrated clinical activity to enable regulatory approval in several solid and hematologic malignancies. We hypothesize that a rigorous and comprehensive surfaceome profiling approach to identify osteosarcoma-specific cell-surface antigens can similarly enable development of effective therapeutics in this disease. Herein, we describe an integrated proteomic and transcriptomic surfaceome profiling approach to identify cell-surface proteins that are highly expressed in osteosarcoma but minimally expressed on normal tissues. Using this approach, we identified targets that are highly expressed in osteosarcoma. Three targets, MT1-MMP, CD276, and MRC2, were validated as overexpressed in osteosarcoma. Furthermore, we tested BT1769, an MT1-MMP-targeted Bicycle toxin conjugate, in osteosarcoma patient-derived xenograft models. The results showed that BT1769 had encouraging antitumor activity, high affinity for its target, and a favorable pharmacokinetic profile. This confirms the hypothesis that our approach identifies novel targets with significant therapeutic potential in osteosarcoma.

Identification of natural product modulators of Merkel cell carcinoma cell growth and survival.

Merkel cell carcinoma (MCC) is a rare, but aggressive skin cancer the incidence of which has increased significantly in recent years. The majority of MCCs have incorporated Merkel cell polyomavirus (VP-MCC) while the remainder are virus-negative (VN-MCC). Although a variety of therapeutic options have shown promise in treating MCC, there remains a need for additional therapeutics as well as probes for better understanding MCC. A high-throughput screening campaign was used to assess the ability of > 25,000 synthetic and natural product compounds as well as > 20,000 natural product extracts to affect growth and survival of VN-MCC and VP-MCC cell lines. Sixteen active compounds were identified that have mechanisms of action reported in the literature along with a number of compounds with unknown mechanisms. Screening results with pure compounds suggest a range of potential targets for MCC including DNA damage, inhibition of DNA or protein synthesis, reactive oxygen species, and proteasome inhibition as well as NFκB inhibition while also suggesting the importance of zinc and/or copper binding. Many of the active compounds, particularly some of the natural products, have multiple reported targets suggesting that this strategy might be a particularly fruitful approach. Processing of several active natural product extracts resulted in the identification of additional MCC-active compounds. Based on these results, further investigations focused on natural products sources, particularly of fungal origin, are expected to yield further potentially useful modulators of MCC.

Atypical signaling of metabotropic glutamate receptor 1 in human melanoma cells.

The metabotropic glutamate 1 (mGlu1) receptor has emerged as a novel target for the treatment of metastatic melanoma and various other cancers. Our laboratory has demonstrated that a selective, non-competitive mGlu1 receptor antagonist slows human melanoma growth in vitro and in vivo. In this study, we sought to determine if the activation of a canonical G protein-dependent signal transduction cascade, which is often used as an output of mGlu1 receptor activity in neuronal cells, correlated with mGlu1 receptor-mediated melanoma cell viability. Glutamate, the endogenous ligand of mGlu1 receptors, significantly increased melanoma cell viability, but did not stimulate phosphoinositide (PI) hydrolysis in several human melanoma cell lines. In contrast, melanoma cell viability was not increased by quisqualate, a highly potent mGlu1 receptor agonist, or DHPG, a selective group I mGlu receptor agonist. Similarly to glutamate, quisqualate also failed to stimulate PI hydrolysis in mGlu1 receptor-expressing melanoma cells. These results suggest that the canonical G protein-dependent signal transduction cascade is not coupled to mGlu1 receptors in all human melanoma cells. On the other hand, dynamin inhibition selectively decreased viability of mGlu1 receptor-expressing melanoma cells, suggesting that a mechanism requiring internalization may control melanoma cell viability. Taken together, these data demonstrate that the approaches commonly used to study mGlu1 receptor function and signaling in other systems may be inappropriate for studying mGlu1 receptor-mediated melanoma cell viability.

Pharmacological characterization of mGlu1 receptors in cerebellar granule cells reveals biased agonism.

The majority of existing research on the function of metabotropic glutamate (mGlu) receptor 1 focuses on G protein-mediated outcomes. However, similar to other G protein-coupled receptors (GPCR), it is becoming apparent that mGlu1 receptor signaling is multi-dimensional and does not always involve G protein activation. Previously, in transfected CHO cells, we showed that mGlu1 receptors activate a G protein-independent, ß-arrestin-dependent signal transduction mechanism and that some mGlu1 receptor ligands were incapable of stimulating this response. Here we set out to investigate the physiological relevance of these findings in a native system using primary cultures of cerebellar granule cells. We tested the ability of a panel of compounds to stimulate two mGlu1 receptor-mediated outcomes: (1) protection from decreased cell viability after withdrawal of trophic support and (2) G protein-mediated phosphoinositide (PI) hydrolysis. We report that the commonly used mGlu1 receptor ligands quisqualate, DHPG, and ACPD are completely biased towards PI hydrolysis and do not induce mGlu1 receptor-stimulated neuroprotection. On the other hand, endogenous compounds including glutamate, aspartate, cysteic acid, cysteine sulfinic acid, and homocysteic acid stimulate both responses. These results show that some commonly used mGlu1 receptor ligands are biased agonists, stimulating only a fraction of mGlu1 receptor-mediated responses in neurons. This emphasizes the importance of utilizing multiple agonists and assays when studying GPCR function.

Triple threat treatment: Exploiting the dependence receptor properties of metabotropic glutamate receptor 1 against melanoma.

Melanoma cells that express metabotropic glutamate 1 (mGlu1) receptors depend on glutamate for their survival and proliferation. The dependence receptor properties of mGlu1 allow us to propose and justify three promising approaches for melanoma treatment: glutamate depletion, mGlu1 receptor antagonism, and targeting of mGlu1 receptor signaling.

Two newly identified exons in human GRM1 express a novel splice variant of metabotropic glutamate 1 receptor.

To date, five human metabotropic glutamate (mGlu) 1 receptor splice variants (1a, 1b, 1d, 1f, and 1g) have been described, all of which involve alternative C-terminal splicing. mGlu1a receptor contains a long C-terminal domain (341 amino acids), which has been shown to scaffold with several proteins and contribute to the structure of the post-synaptic density. However, several shorter mGlu1 receptor splice variants lack the sequence required for these interactions, and no major functional differences between these short splice variants have been described. By using RT-PCR we have shown that two human melanoma cell lines express both mGlu1a and mGlu1b receptors. In addition, using 3'RACE, we identified three previously unknown mGlu1 receptor mRNAs. Two differ in the length of their 3' untranslated region (UTR), and encode the same predicted protein as mGlu1g receptor-the shortest of all mGlu1 receptor splice variants. The third mRNA, named mGlu1h, encodes a predicted C-terminal splice variant of 10 additional amino acids. mGlu1h mRNA was observed in two different melanoma cell lines and is overexpressed, compared with melanoma precursor cells, melanocytes. Most importantly, this new splice variant, mGlu1h receptor, is encoded by two previously unidentified exons located within the human GRM1 gene. Additionally, these new exons are found exclusively within the GRM1 genes of higher primates and are highly conserved. Therefore, we hypothesize that mGlu1h receptors play a distinct role in primate glutamatergic signaling.