Glufosinate constrains synchronous and metachronous metastasis by promoting anti-tumor macrophages.
EMBO Mol Med
; 12(10): e11210, 2020 10 07.
Article
in En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-32885605
ABSTRACT
Glutamine synthetase (GS) generates glutamine from glutamate and controls the release of inflammatory mediators. In macrophages, GS activity, driven by IL10, associates to the acquisition of M2-like functions. Conditional deletion of GS in macrophages inhibits metastasis by boosting the formation of anti-tumor, M1-like, tumor-associated macrophages (TAMs). From this basis, we evaluated the pharmacological potential of GS inhibitors in targeting metastasis, identifying glufosinate as a specific human GS inhibitor. Glufosinate was tested in both cultured macrophages and on mice bearing metastatic lung, skin and breast cancer. We found that glufosinate rewires macrophages toward an M1-like phenotype both at the primary tumor and metastatic site, countering immunosuppression and promoting vessel sprouting. This was also accompanied to a reduction in cancer cell intravasation and extravasation, leading to synchronous and metachronous metastasis growth inhibition, but no effects on primary tumor growth. Glufosinate treatment was well-tolerated, without liver and brain toxicity, nor hematopoietic defects. These results identify GS as a druggable enzyme to rewire macrophage functions and highlight the potential of targeting metabolic checkpoints in macrophages to treat cancer metastasis.
Key words
Full text:
1
Collection:
01-internacional
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Breast Neoplasms
/
Macrophages
Limits:
Animals
/
Female
/
Humans
Language:
En
Journal:
EMBO Mol Med
Journal subject:
BIOLOGIA MOLECULAR
Year:
2020
Document type:
Article
Affiliation country:
Bélgica