Inhibition of Wnt/β-Catenin Signaling Sensitizes Esophageal Cancer Cells to Chemoradiotherapy.
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ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Spitzner M
PROVIDER: S-EPMC8509072 | biostudies-literature |
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
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Project description:Activation of Wnt/β-catenin signaling plays a central role in the development and progression of colorectal cancer (CRC). Previously, we demonstrated that the Wnt transcription factor, TCF7L2, was overexpressed in primary rectal cancers that were resistant to chemoradiotherapy (CRT), and that TCF7L2 functionally mediates resistance of CRC cells to CRT. However, it remained unclear whether the resistance was mediated by a TCF7L2 inherent mechanism or Wnt/β-catenin signaling in general. We now show that silencing of β-catenin resulted in sensitization of the CRC cell lines LS1034, SW480, and SW837 to CRT, demonstrating a relationship between Wnt/β-catenin signaling and CRT resistance. To investigate the potential role of Wnt/β-catenin signaling in controlling therapeutic responsiveness, non-tumorigenic RPE-1 cells were stimulated with Wnt-3a, a physiological ligand at the Frizzled receptor, which significantly increased resistance to CRT. This effect could be recapitulated by overexpression of mutated, undegradable β-catenin (S33Y). Again, this resulted in a significantly boosted resistance of RPE-1 cells to CRT, which was abrogated by siRNA-mediated silencing of β-catenin. Consistent with these findings, we observed higher expression levels of active (unphosphorylated) β-catenin as well as increased TCF/LEF reporter activity in SW1463 cells that evolved radiation-resistance due to repeated radiation-treatment. Global gene expression profiling identified several altered pathways associated with treatment response as a consequence of Wnt/β-catenin pathway activation, sheading new light on PPARD signaling as a possible mechanism of Wnt mediated resistance. Hence, synergistic pathway inhibition of either Wnt and/or one of the downstream-pathways may represent a promising strategy to increase therapeutic responsiveness to CRT.
2017-05-01 | GSE97543 | GEO
Project description:Activation of Wnt/?-catenin signaling plays a central role in the development and progression of colorectal cancer. The Wnt-transcription factor, TCF7L2, is overexpressed in primary rectal cancers that are resistant to chemoradiotherapy and TCF7L2 mediates resistance to chemoradiotherapy. However, it is unclear whether the resistance is mediated by a TCF7L2 inherent mechanism or Wnt/?-catenin signaling in general. Here, inhibition of ?-catenin by siRNAs or a small-molecule inhibitor (XAV-939) resulted in sensitization of colorectal cancer cells to chemoradiotherapy. To investigate the potential role of Wnt/?-catenin signaling in controlling therapeutic responsiveness, nontumorigenic RPE-1 cells were stimulated with Wnt-3a, a physiologic ligand of Frizzled receptors, which increased resistance to chemoradiotherapy. This effect could be recapitulated by overexpression of a degradation-resistant mutant of ?-catenin (S33Y), also boosting resistance of RPE-1 cells to chemoradiotherapy, which was, conversely, abrogated by siRNA-mediated silencing of ?-catenin. Consistent with these findings, higher expression levels of active ?-catenin were observed as well as increased TCF/LEF reporter activity in SW1463 cells that evolved radiation resistance due to repeated radiation treatment. Global gene expression profiling identified several altered pathways, including PPAR signaling and other metabolic pathways, associated with cellular response to radiation. In summary, aberrant activation of Wnt/?-catenin signaling not only regulates the development and progression of colorectal cancer, but also mediates resistance of rectal cancers to chemoradiotherapy.Implications: Targeting Wnt/?-catenin signaling or one of the downstream pathways represents a promising strategy to increase response to chemoradiotherapy. Mol Cancer Res; 15(11); 1481-90. ©2017 AACR.
| S-EPMC5772978 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Osteosarcoma (OS) is one of the most common malignant bone tumors in early adolescence. Multi-drug chemotherapy has greatly increased the five year survival rate from 20% to 70%. However, the rate has been staggering for 30 years and the prognosis is particularly poor for patients with recurrence and metastasis. Our study aimed to investigate the role of Wnt-?-catenin, Notch and Hedgehog pathway in OS development because all these pathways are involved in skeletal development, tumorigenesis and chemoresistance. Our results showed that the major components in Wnt-?-catenin pathway, e.g. Wnt3a, ?-catenin and Lef1, were consistently upregulated in human osteosarcoma cell line Saos2 cells compared to human fetal osteoblasts (hFOB), whereas the changes in the expression levels of Notch and Hh signaling molecules were not consistent. Knocking down ?-catenin increased the Saos2 sensitivity to methotrexate (MTX) induced cell death. Consistently, the expression level of ?-catenin protein correlated with the invasiveness of OS, as evidenced by more intensive ?-catenin immunoreactivity in higher grade OS samples. Chemical inhibition of the Wnt-?-catenin signaling enhanced MTX mediated death of Saos2 cells. A synergistic effect with MTX was observed when both inhibitors for Wnt-?-catenin and Notch pathways were simultaneously used, while the addition of the Hh inhibitor did not further improve the efficacy. Our findings provide some novel insight to OS pathogenesis and lay a foundation for future application of Wnt-?-catenin and Notch inhibitors together with the currently used chemotherapeutic drugs to improve the outcome of OS treatment.
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Project description:Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) is one of the most difficult breast cancers to treat because there is no targeted treatment, and conventional cytotoxic chemotherapy followed by adjuvant radiation therapy is the standard of care for patients with TNBC. We herein reported that ionizing radiation (IR) induced Wnt3a, LRP6 and ?-catenin expression and consequently activated Wnt/?-catenin signaling in TNBC MDA-MB-231, MDA-MB-468 and Hs578T cells. Moreover, depletion of ?-catenin by shRNA sensitized TNBC cells to IR, whereas treatment of Wnt3a protein or overexpression of ?-catenin resulted in radioresistance of TNBC cells. Niclosamide, a potent inhibitor of Wnt/?-catenin signaling, not only inhibited constitutive Wnt/?-catenin signaling, but also blocked IR-induced Wnt/?-catenin signaling in TNBC cells. In addition, niclosamide sensitized TNBC cells to IR, prevented Wnt3a-induced radioresistance, and overcame ?-catenin-induced radioresistance in TNBC cells. Importantly, animals treated with the combination of niclosamide and ?-ray local tumor irradiation had significant inhibition of MDA-MB-231 tumor growth compared with treated with local tumor irradiation alone. These findings indicate that Wnt/?-catenin signaling pathway plays an important role in the development of radioresistance of TNBC cells, and that niclosamide had significant radiosensitizing effects by inhibiting Wnt/?-catenin signaling in TNBC cells. Our study also provides rationale for further preclinical and clinical evaluation of niclosamide in TNBC management.
| S-EPMC5173121 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Esophageal cancer is one of the most common tumor in the world, and the morbidity rate is as high as 100/100 000 in some parts of China. Therefore, it is important and urgent to explore the pathogenesis of esophageal cancer and find new therapeutic targets for esophageal cancer. In this study, we found that a novel tumor suppressor SPINK5 is significantly reduced in the development of esophageal cancer, and is closely related to the pathological differentiation and lymph node metastasis of esophageal cancer via bioinformatics analysis and esophageal cancer tissue array. Further studies have found that SPINK5 is closely related to Wnt/β-catenin signaling pathway by bioinformatics analysis and western blot. In esophageal cancer cells, SPINK5 overexpression can inhibit Wnt/β-catenin signaling pathway. Combined with LiCl or MG-132 treatment, SPINK5 can inhibit GSK3β phosphorylation and promote β-catenin protein degradation, thus inhibit Wnt/β-catenin signaling pathway. In vivo study, SPINK5 overexpression can significantly inhibit the growth of esophageal cancer cells. Our study shows that SPINK5 can inhibit the proliferation, migration, and invasion of esophageal cancer cells by inhibiting Wnt/β-catenin signaling pathway, and thus plays an important role in the development of esophageal cancer, and may serve as a treatment target of esophageal cancer.
| S-EPMC6537088 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Use of the diabetes type II drug Metformin is associated with a moderately lowered risk of cancer incidence in numerous tumor entities. Studying the molecular changes associated with the tumor-suppressive action of Metformin we found that the oncogene SOX4, which is upregulated in solid tumors and associated with poor prognosis, was induced by Wnt/β-catenin signaling and blocked by Metformin. Wnt signaling inhibition by Metformin was surprisingly specific for cancer cells. Unraveling the underlying specificity, we identified Metformin and other Mitochondrial Complex I (MCI) inhibitors as inducers of intracellular acidification in cancer cells. We demonstrated that acidification triggers the unfolded protein response to induce the global transcriptional repressor DDIT3, known to block Wnt signaling. Moreover, our results suggest that intracellular acidification universally inhibits Wnt signaling. Based on these findings, we combined MCI inhibitors with H+ ionophores, to escalate cancer cells into intracellular hyper-acidification and ATP depletion. This treatment lowered intracellular pH both in vitro and in a mouse xenograft tumor model, depleted cellular ATP, blocked Wnt signaling, downregulated SOX4, and strongly decreased stemness and viability of cancer cells. Importantly, the inhibition of Wnt signaling occurred downstream of β-catenin, encouraging applications in treatment of cancers caused by APC and β-catenin mutations.
| S-EPMC6028397 | biostudies-literature
Project description:BackgroundChloride channel accessory 1 (CLCA1) belongs to the calcium-sensitive chloride conductance protein family, which is mainly expressed in the colon, small intestine and appendix. This study was conducted to investigate the functions and mechanisms of CLCA1 in colorectal cancer (CRC).MethodsThe CLCA1 protein expression level in CRC patients was evaluated by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), immunohistochemistry (IHC), and western blotting analysis. Using CRISPR/Cas9 technology, CLCA1-upregulated (CLCA1-ACT) and CLCA1-knockout cells (CLCA1-KO), as well as their respective negative controls (CLCA1-ACT-NC and CLCA1-KO-NC), were constructed from the SW620 cell line. Cell growth and metastatic ability were assessed both in vitro and in vivo. The association of CLCA1 with epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) and other signaling pathways was determined by western blotting assays.ResultsThe expression level of CLCA1 in CRC tissues was significantly decreased compared with that in adjacent normal tissue (P< 0.05). Meanwhile, the serum concentration of CLCA1 in CRC patients was also significantly lower when compared with that of healthy controls (1.48?±?1.06 ng/mL vs 1.06?±?0.73 ng/mL, P?=?0.0018). In addition, CLCA1 serum concentration and mRNA expression level in CRC tissues were inversely correlated with CRC metastasis and tumor stage. Upregulated CLCA1 suppressed CRC growth and metastasis in vitro and in vivo, whereas inhibition of CLCA1 led to the opposite results. Increased expression levels of CLCA1 could repress Wnt signaling and the EMT process in CRC cells.ConclusionsOur findings suggest that increased expression levels of CLCA1 can suppress CRC aggressiveness. CLCA1 functions as a tumor suppressor possibly via inhibition of the Wnt/beta-catenin signaling pathway and the EMT process.
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Project description:Wnt2 is implicated in various human cancers. However, it remains unknown how Wnt2 is upregulated in human cancer and contributes to tumorigenesis. Here we found that Wnt2 is highly expressed in colorectal cancer (CRC) cells. In addition to co-expression of Wnt2 with Wnt/β-catenin target genes in CRC, knockdown or knockout of Wnt2 significantly downregulates Wnt/β-catenin target gene expression in CRC cells. Importantly, depletion or ablation of endogenous Wnt2 inhibits CRC cell proliferation. Similarly, neutralizing secreted Wnt2 reduces Wnt target gene expression and suppresses CRC cell proliferation. Conversely, Wnt2 increases cell proliferation of intestinal epithelial cells. Intriguingly, WNT2 expression is transcriptionally silenced by EZH2-mediated H3K27me3 histone modification in non-CRC cells, However, WNT2 expression is de-repressed by the loss of PRC2's promoter occupancy in CRC cells. Our results reveal the unexpected roles of Wnt2 in complementing Wnt/β-catenin signaling for CRC cell proliferation.
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Project description:The aberrant Wnt/β-catenin signaling pathway facilitates cancer stem cell renewal, cell proliferation and differentiation, thus exerting crucial roles in tumorigenesis and therapy response. Accumulated investigations highlight the therapeutic potential of agents targeting Wnt/β-catenin signaling in cancer. Wnt ligand/ receptor interface, β-catenin destruction complex and TCF/β-catenin transcription complex are key components of the cascade and have been targeted with interventions in preclinical and clinical evaluations. This scoping review aims at outlining the latest progress on the current approaches and perspectives of Wnt/β-catenin signaling pathway targeted therapy in various cancer types. Better understanding of the updates on the inhibitors, antagonists and activators of Wnt/β-catenin pathway rationalizes innovative strategies for personalized cancer treatment. Further investigations are warranted to confirm precise and secure targeted agents and achieve optimal use with clinical benefits in malignant diseases.
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Project description:The naturally occurring isothiocyanate sulforaphane (SFN) from cruciferous vegetables is associated with growth inhibition of various cancer types, including colorectal cancer. Colorectal cancer is most frequently driven by hyperactive Wnt/β-catenin signaling. Here, we show that SFN treatment reduced growth of three unrelated colorectal cancer cell lines (SW480, DLD1 and HCT116) via induction of cell death and inhibition of proliferation. Importantly, SFN inhibits Wnt/β-catenin signaling in colorectal cancer cells as shown by inhibition of β-catenin-dependent luciferase reporters and repression of β-catenin target genes (AXIN2, LGR5). SFN inhibits Wnt signaling downstream of β-catenin degradation and induces the formation of nuclear β-catenin structures associated with closed chromatin. Co-expression of the transcription factors LEF1 or TCF4 prevented formation of these structures and rescued inhibition of Wnt/β-catenin signaling by SFN. Our findings provide a molecular basis explaining SFN effects in colorectal cancer cells and underline its potential for prevention and therapy of colorectal cancer.
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