Dataset Information

Retinoic acid pathway activity in Wilms tumors and characterization of biological responses in vitro.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Wilms tumor (WT) is one of the most common malignancies in childhood. With current therapy protocols up to 90% of patients can be cured, but there is still a need to improve therapy for patients with aggressive WT and to reduce treatment intensity where possible. Prior data suggested a deregulation of the retinoic acid (RA) signaling pathway in high-risk WT, but its mode of action remained unclear.

Results

The association of retinoid signaling and clinical parameters could be validated in a large independent tumor set, but its relevance in primary nephrectomy tumors from very young children may be different. Reduced RA pathway activity and MYCN overexpression were found in high risk tumors as opposed to tumors with low/intermediate risk, suggesting a beneficial impact of RA especially on advanced WT. To search for possible modes of action of retinoids as novel therapeutic options, primary tumor cell cultures were treated in vitro with all-trans-RA (ATRA), 9cis-RA, fenretinide and combinations of retinoids and a histone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibitor. Genes deregulated in high risk tumors showed opposite changes upon treatment suggesting a positive effect of retinoids. 6/7 primary cultures tested reduced proliferation, irrespective of prior RA signaling levels. The only variant culture was derived from mesoblastic nephroma, a distinct childhood kidney neoplasm. Retinoid/HDAC inhibitor combinations provided no synergistic effect. ATRA and 9cis-RA induced morphological changes suggestive of differentiation, while fenretinide induced apoptosis in several cultures tested. Microarray analysis of ATRA treated WT cells revealed differential expression of many genes involved in extracellular matrix formation and osteogenic, neuronal or muscle differentiation. The effects documented appear to be reversible upon drug withdrawal, however.

Conclusions

Altered retinoic acid signaling has been validated especially in high risk Wilms tumors. In vitro testing of primary tumor cultures provided clear evidence of a potential utility of retinoids in Wilms tumor treatment based on the analysis of gene expression, proliferation, differentiation and apoptosis.

SUBMITTER: Wegert J

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3239322 | biostudies-literature | 2011 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Publications

Retinoic acid pathway activity in Wilms tumors and characterization of biological responses in vitro.

Wegert Jenny J Bausenwein Sabrina S Kneitz Susanne S Roth Sabine S Graf Norbert N Geissinger Eva E Gessler Manfred M

Molecular cancer 20111108

<h4>Background</h4>Wilms tumor (WT) is one of the most common malignancies in childhood. With current therapy protocols up to 90% of patients can be cured, but there is still a need to improve therapy for patients with aggressive WT and to reduce treatment intensity where possible. Prior data suggested a deregulation of the retinoic acid (RA) signaling pathway in high-risk WT, but its mode of action remained unclear.<h4>Results</h4>The association of retinoid signaling and clinical parameters co ...[more]

PMID: 22067876

Similar Datasets

Project description:The aim of this study is to identify microRNAs (miRNAs) transcriptionnally regulated by retinoic acid (RA). For that purpose we have used the RA-based treatment of the Acute Promyelocytic Leukemia (APL) as a model. This malignancy is characterised by a differentiation arrest of granulopoiesis at the promyelocytic stage. APL is molecularly associated with reciprocal translocations that always involve the retinoic acid receptor a (RARa). In the vast majority of APL cases, a t(15;17) chromosomal translocation fuses the genes encoding the promyelocytic leukemia protein PML and RARa. The resulting PML-RARa is a transcriptional repressor that impedes the expression of RA-regulated genes notably through an aberrant recruitment of transcriptional repressors and histone deacetylases. Consequently, these genes become insensitive to physiological doses (nanoM) of all-trans-retinoic acid (ATRA) but pharmacological doses (microM), overcome the PML-RARa-mediated repression and restore normal transcription and granulocytic differentiation. The restorative effects of RA can be reproduced in vitro in the NB4 cells, which were derived from an APL patient. These cells provide an excellent model to study the transcriptional deregulations that arise in APL and the molecular effects of the anti-cancerous RA-based treatment. We also used in this study the RA-resistant cells, namely NB4-LR1 and NB4-LR2 cells. The NB4-LR1 cells do transcriptionally respond to ATRA but do not maturate. In contrast, the NB4-LR2 cells show a clear defect in RA signaling, as they harbor a truncated form of PML-RAR protein that is not sensitive to pharmacological doses of RA. First, we plan to characterize miRNAs-repressed by PML-RAR. We reasoned that if some miRNAs are repressed by this protein, then pharmacological doses of RA should abolish this repression and lead to an increase in the level of expression of the corresponding miRNAs. NB4, NB4-LR1 and NB4-LR2 cells will thus be treated for 16h with ATRA (1 microM), and miRNAs profiles will be compared. We anticipate that, the expression of a potential miRNA-repressed by PML-RAR should be up-regulated by ATRA in both NB4 and NB4-LR1 cells but remain unchanged in NB4-LR2 cells. This expression pattern should in fact be similar to those observed for known RA-regulated genes, such as RARb, a well characterized target of the RARa and PML-RAR proteins. Importantly, this experimental procedure was already validated with the identification of a miRNA repressed by PML-RAR (patent Lecellier et al. #WO 2006/048553). MiRNAs candidates obtained will then be validated by chromatin immunoprecipitation using anti-RARa and anti-PML antibodies, followed by luciferase assays in presence or absence of ATRA. Keywords: retinoic acid-mediated gene regulation

Dataset Information

Retinoic acid pathway activity in Wilms tumors and characterization of biological responses in vitro.

Background

Results

Conclusions

Publications

Retinoic acid pathway activity in Wilms tumors and characterization of biological responses in vitro.

Similar Datasets

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure

Tweets