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Identification of Chemical Inhibitors of ?-Catenin-Driven Liver Tumorigenesis in Zebrafish.

ABSTRACT: Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the most lethal human cancers. The search for targeted treatments has been hampered by the lack of relevant animal models for the genetically diverse subsets of HCC, including the 20-40% of HCCs that are defined by activating mutations in the gene encoding ?-catenin. To address this chemotherapeutic challenge, we created and characterized transgenic zebrafish expressing hepatocyte-specific activated ?-catenin. By 2 months post fertilization (mpf), 33% of transgenic zebrafish developed HCC in their livers, and 78% and 80% of transgenic zebrafish showed HCC at 6 and 12 mpf, respectively. As expected for a malignant process, transgenic zebrafish showed significantly decreased mean adult survival compared to non-transgenic control siblings. Using this novel transgenic model, we screened for druggable pathways that mediate ?-catenin-induced liver growth and identified two c-Jun N-terminal kinase (JNK) inhibitors and two antidepressants (one tricyclic antidepressant, amitriptyline, and one selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor) that suppressed this phenotype. We further found that activated ?-catenin was associated with JNK pathway hyperactivation in zebrafish and in human HCC. In zebrafish larvae, JNK inhibition decreased liver size specifically in the presence of activated ?-catenin. The ?-catenin-specific growth-inhibitory effect of targeting JNK was conserved in human liver cancer cells. Our other class of hits, antidepressants, has been used in patient treatment for decades, raising the exciting possibility that these drugs could potentially be repurposed for cancer treatment. In support of this proposal, we found that amitriptyline decreased tumor burden in a mouse HCC model. Our studies implicate JNK inhibitors and antidepressants as potential therapeutics for ?-catenin-induced liver tumors.

SUBMITTER: Evason KJ

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4489858 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Publications

Identification of Chemical Inhibitors of β-Catenin-Driven Liver Tumorigenesis in Zebrafish.

Evason Kimberley J KJ Francisco Macrina T MT Juric Vladislava V Balakrishnan Sanjeev S Lopez Pazmino Maria Del Pilar Mdel P Gordan John D JD Kakar Sanjay S Spitsbergen Jan J Goga Andrei A Stainier Didier Y R DY

PLoS genetics 20150702 7

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the most lethal human cancers. The search for targeted treatments has been hampered by the lack of relevant animal models for the genetically diverse subsets of HCC, including the 20-40% of HCCs that are defined by activating mutations in the gene encoding β-catenin. To address this chemotherapeutic challenge, we created and characterized transgenic zebrafish expressing hepatocyte-specific activated β-catenin. By 2 months post fertilization (mpf), 33% of ...[more]

PMID: 26134322

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Project description:Although mutations in Kras are present in 21% of lung tumors, there is a high level of heterogeneity in phenotype and outcomes amongst lung cancer patients suggesting the importance of other pathways. Wnt/β-catenin signaling is a known oncogenic pathway that plays a well defined role in colon and skin cancer but its role in lung cancer remains unclear. We show that activation of Wnt/β-catenin in the bronchiolar epithelium of the adult lung does not promote tumor development by itself. However, activation of Wnt/β- catenin signaling leads to a dramatic increase in tumor formation both in overall tumor number and size compared to KrasG12D alone. We show that activation of Wnt/β- catenin signaling significantly alters the KrasG12D tumor phenotype resulting in a phenotypic switch from bronchiolar epithelium to the highly proliferative distal progenitors found in the embryonic lung. This is associated with a decrease in E- cadherin expression at the cell surface which may increase metastasis in Wnt/β-catenin signaling positive tumors. Together, these data suggest that activation of Wnt/β-catenin signaling in combination with other oncogenic pathways in lung epithelium may lead to a more aggressive phenotype due to the imposition of an embryonic distal progenitor phenotype accompanied by decreased E-cadherin expression. We performed microarray analysis of control murine lung, CC10-cre:KrasG12D, and CC10-cre:Ctnnb1ex3flox:LSL-KrasG12D double mutant micro-dissected murine lung tumors to determine their transcriptional phenotype. Lungs of five-month-old mice were PBS inflated and all the tumors in each lobe were dissected. The total number of tumors obtained from three out of the 5 pulmonar lobes of each animal was called a sample the other two lobes were saved in case there were problems and the array needed to be repeated. Trizol was used to isolate RNA for microarray analysis. Samples & Genotypes: control murine lung n=2 animals, CC10-cre:KrasG12D n=2 animals, and CC10-cre:Ctnnb1ex3flox:LSL-KrasG12D n=2 animals.

Dataset Information

Identification of Chemical Inhibitors of ?-Catenin-Driven Liver Tumorigenesis in Zebrafish.

Publications

Identification of Chemical Inhibitors of β-Catenin-Driven Liver Tumorigenesis in Zebrafish.

Similar Datasets

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