ATF4 suppresses hepatocarcinogenesis by inducing SLC7A11 (xCT) to suppress stress-related ferroptosis
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ABSTRACT:
ORGANISM(S): Mus musculus
PROVIDER: GSE191115 | GEO | 2023/12/09
REPOSITORIES: GEO
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Project description:Background & aimsHepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), a leading cause of cancer-related death, is associated with viral hepatitis, non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), and alcohol-related steatohepatitis, all of which trigger endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress, hepatocyte death, inflammation, and compensatory proliferation. Using ER stress-prone MUP-uPA mice, we established that ER stress and hypernutrition cooperate to cause NASH and HCC, but the contribution of individual stress effectors, such as activating transcription factor 4 (ATF4), to HCC and their underlying mechanisms of action remained unknown.MethodsHepatocyte-specific ATF4-deficient MUP-uPA mice (MUP-uPA/Atf4Δhep) and control MUP-uPA/Atf4F/F mice were fed a high-fat diet to induce NASH-related HCC, and Atf4F/F and Atf4Δhep mice were injected with diethylnitrosamine to model carcinogen-induced HCC. Histological, biochemical, and RNA-sequencing analyses were performed to identify and define the role of ATF4-induced solute carrier family 7a member 11 (SLC7A11) expression in hepatocarcinogenesis. Reconstitution of SLC7A11 in ATF4-deficient primary hepatocytes and mouse livers was used to study its effects on ferroptosis and HCC development.ResultsHepatocyte ATF4 ablation inhibited hepatic steatosis, but increased susceptibility to ferroptosis, resulting in accelerated HCC development. Although ATF4 activates numerous genes, ferroptosis susceptibility and hepatocarcinogenesis were reversed by ectopic expression of a single ATF4 target, Slc7a11, coding for a subunit of the cystine/glutamate antiporter xCT, which is needed for glutathione synthesis. A ferroptosis inhibitor also reduced liver damage and inflammation. ATF4 and SLC7A11 amounts were positively correlated in human HCC and livers of patients with NASH.ConclusionsDespite ATF4 being upregulated in established HCC, it serves an important protective function in normal hepatocytes. By maintaining glutathione production, ATF4 inhibits ferroptosis-dependent inflammatory cell death, which is known to promote compensatory proliferation and hepatocarcinogenesis. Ferroptosis inhibitors or ATF4 activators may also blunt HCC onset.Impact and implicationsLiver cancer or hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is associated with multiple aetiologies. Most HCC aetiologies cause hepatocyte stress and death, as well as subsequent inflammation, and compensatory proliferation, thereby accelerating HCCdevelopment. The contribution of individual stress effectors to HCC and their underlying mechanisms of action were heretofore unknown. This study shows that the stress-responsive transcription factor ATF4 blunts liver damage and cancer development by suppressing iron-dependent cell death (ferroptosis). Although ATF4 ablation prevents hepatic steatosis, it also increases susceptibility to ferroptosis, due to decreased expression of the cystine/glutamate antiporter SLC7A11, whose expression in human HCC and NASH correlates with ATF4. These findings reinforce the notion that benign steatosis may be protective and does not increase cancer risk unless accompanied by stress-induced liver damage. These results have important implications for prevention of liver damage and cancer.
| S-EPMC11332364 | biostudies-literature
Project description:ATF4 suppresses hepatocarcinogenesis by inducing SLC7A11 (xCT) to suppress stress-related ferroptosis
| PRJNA789791 | ENA
Project description: Not available
| S-EPMC10684390 | biostudies-literature
Project description:The glutamate exchanger xCT (SLC7a11) is causally linked with the malignancy grade of brain tumors and represents a key player in glutamate, cystine and glutathione metabolism. Although blocking xCT is not cytotoxic for brain tumors, xCT inhibition disrupts the neurodegenerative and microenvironment-toxifying activity of gliomas. Here, we report on the use of various xCT inhibitors as single modal drugs and in combination with the autophagy-inducing standard chemotherapeutic agent temozolomide (Temodal/Temcad®, TMZ). xCT overexpressing cells (xCTOE) are more resistant to the FDA and EMA approved drug sulfasalazine (Azulfidine/Salazopyrin/Sulazine®, SAS) and RNAi-mediated xCT knock down (xCTKD) in gliomas increases the susceptibility towards SAS in rodent gliomas. In human gliomas, challenged xCT expression had no impact on SAS-induced cytotoxicity. Noteworthy, other xCT inhibitors such as erastin and sorafenib showed enhanced efficacy on xCTKD gliomas. In contrast, cytotoxic action of TMZ operates independently from xCT expression levels on rodent gliomas. Human glioma cells with silenced xCT expression display higher vulnerability towards TMZ alone as well as towards combined TMZ and SAS. Hence, we tested the partial xCT blockers and ferroptosis inducing agents erastin and sorafenib (Nexavar®, FDA and EMA-approved drug for lung cancer). Noteworthy, xCTOE gliomas withstand erastin and sorafenib-induced cell death in a concentration-dependent manner, whereas siRNA-mediated xCT knock down increased susceptibility towards erastin and sorafenib. TMZ efficacy can be potentiated when combined with erastin, however not by sorafenib. Moreover, gliomas with high xCT expression are more vulnerable towards combinatorial treatment with erastin-temozolomide. These results disclose that ferroptosis inducers are valid compounds for potentiating the frontline therapeutic agent temozolomide in a multitoxic approach.
| S-EPMC5342691 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Background & aimsThe outcome of liver injury is dictated by factors that control the accumulation of myofibroblastic (activated) hepatic stellate cells (MF-HSCs) but therapies that specifically block this process have not been discovered. We evaluated the hypothesis that MF-HSCs and liver fibrosis could be safely reduced by inhibiting the cysteine/glutamate antiporter xCT.MethodsxCT activity was disrupted in both HSC lines and primary mouse HSCs to determine its effect on HSC biology. For comparison, xCT expression and function were also determined in primary mouse hepatocytes. Finally, the roles of xCT were assessed in mouse models of liver fibrosis.ResultsWe found that xCT mRNA levels were almost a log-fold higher in primary mouse HSCs than in primary mouse hepatocytes. Further, primary mouse HSCs dramatically induced xCT as they became MF, and inhibiting xCT blocked GSH synthesis, reduced growth and fibrogenic gene expression and triggered HSC ferroptosis. Doses of xCT inhibitors that induced massive ferroptosis in HSCs had no effect on hepatocyte viability in vitro, and xCT inhibitors reduced liver fibrosis without worsening liver injury in mice with acute liver injury. However, TGFβ treatment up-regulated xCT and triggered ferroptosis in cultured primary mouse hepatocytes. During chronic liver injury, xCT inhibitors exacerbated injury, impaired regeneration and failed to improve fibrosis, confirming that HSCs and hepatocytes deploy similar mechanisms to survive chronic oxidative stress.ConclusionsInhibiting xCT can suppress myofibroblastic activity and induce ferroptosis of MF-HSCs. However, targeting xCT inhibition to MF-HSCs will be necessary to exploit ferroptosis as an anti-fibrotic strategy.
| S-EPMC8594404 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Activating transcription factor 4 (ATF4) is a critical mediator of metabolic and oxidative homeostasis and cell survival. ATF4 is elevated in response to diverse microenvironmental stresses, including starvation, ER stress damages and exposure to toxic factors. Here we show that ATF4 expression fosters the malignancy of primary brain tumors (WHO grade III and IV gliomas) and increases proliferation and tumor angiogenesis. Hence, ATF4 expression promotes cell migration and anchorage-independent cell growth, whereas siRNA-mediated knockdown of ATF4 attenuates these features of malignancy in human gliomas. Further experiments revealed that ATF4-dependent tumor promoting effects are mediated by transcriptional targeting the glutamate antiporter xCT/SCL7A11 (also known as system Xc-). Thus, xCT is elevated as a consequence of ATF4 activation. We further found evidence that ATF4-induced proliferation can be attenuated by pharmacological or genetic xCT inhibition and ferroptosis inducers such as sorafenib, erastin and GPx4 inhibitor RSL3. Further, fostered xCT expression promotes cell survival and growth in ATF4 knockdown cells. Moreover, increased xCT levels ameliorate sorafenib and erastin-induced ferroptosis. Conversely, ATF4 knockdown renders cells susceptible for erastin, sorafenib and RSL3-induced ferroptosis. We further identified that ATF4 promotes tumor-mediated neuronal cell death which can be alleviated by xCT inhibition. Moreover, elevated ATF4 expression in gliomas promotes tumor angiogenesis. Noteworthy, ATF4-induced angiogenesis could be diminished by ferroptosis inducers erastin and by GPx4 inhibitor RSL3. Our data provide proof-of-principle evidence that ATF4 fosters proliferation and induces a toxic microenvironmental niche. Furthermore, ATF4 increases tumor angiogenesis and shapes the vascular architecture in a xCT-dependent manner. Thus, inhibition of ATF4 is a valid target for diminishing tumor growth and vasculature via sensitizing tumor cells for ferroptosis.
| S-EPMC5633655 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Selecting neuronal cell lines for resistance against oxidative stress might recapitulate some adaptive processes in neurodegenerative diseases where oxidative stress is involved like Parkinson's disease. We recently reported that in hippocampal HT22 cells selected for resistance against oxidative glutamate toxicity, the cystine/glutamate antiporter system x(c)(-), which imports cystine for synthesis of the antioxidant glutathione, and its specific subunit, xCT, are upregulated. (Lewerenz et al., J Neurochem 98(3):916-25). Here, we show that in these glutamate-resistant HT22 cells upregulation of xCT mediates glutamate resistance, and xCT expression is induced by upregulation of the transcription factor ATF4. The mechanism of ATF4 upregulation consists of a 13?bp deletion in the upstream open reading frame (uORF2) overlapping the ATF4 open reading frame. The resulting uORF2-ATF4 fusion protein is efficiently translated even at a low phosphorylation levels of the translation initiation factor eIF2?, a condition under which ATF4 translation is normally suppressed. A similar ATF4 mutation associated with prominent upregulation of xCT expression was identified in PC12 cells selected for resistance against amyloid ?-peptide. Our data indicate that ATF4 has a central role in regulating xCT expression and resistance against oxidative stress. ATF4 mutations might have broader significance as upregulation of xCT is found in tumor cells and associated with anticancer drug resistance.
| S-EPMC3321624 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Human macrophages are protected by intrinsic antiviral defenses that provide moderate protection against HIV-1 infection. Macrophages that do become infected can serve as long-lived reservoirs, to disseminate HIV-1 to CD4+ T cells. Infection of macrophages with HIV-1 and HIV-2 is inhibited by constitutive mobilization of antioxidant response master transcription regulator Nrf2. The downstream mediator of this restriction was not identified. Among the tens of genes controlled directly by Nrf2 in macrophages, we found that xCT/SLC7A11, a 12-transmembrane, cystine-glutamate antiporter promotes antiretroviral activity. We show here that depletion of xCT mRNA increases HIV-1 infection. Reconstitution of xCT knock out cells with wild-type xCT but not a transport-deficient mutant restores anti-HIV-1 activity. Pharmacological inhibitors of xCT amino acid transport also increase infection. The block is independent of known restriction factors and acts against HIV-1 and HIV-2. Like the block triggered through Nrf2, xCT function impedes infection immediately before 2-LTR circle formation.
| S-EPMC7925438 | biostudies-literature
Project description:In this study, we demonstrated that deletion of the activating transcription factor 4 (ATF4) resulted in severely impaired HSC expansion in the fetal liver at E12.5 and E15.5. In contrast, generation of the first HSC population in the aorta-gonad-mesonephros region at E11.5 was not significantly affected. Furthermore, the HSC-supporting ability of both endothelial and stromal cells in fetal liver was significantly compromised in the absence of ATF4. Gene profiling using RNA-seq revealed down-regulated expression of a panel of cytokines in ATF4-/- stromal cells, including angiopoietin-like protein 3 (Angptl3) and vascular endothelial growth factor-A (VEGFA). To investigate the molecular pathways of ATF4 in the stromal cells and LSK cells in the fetal liver.
2015-11-20 | E-GEOD-66381 | biostudies-arrayexpress
Project description:In this study, we demonstrated that deletion of the activating transcription factor 4 (ATF4) resulted in severely impaired HSC expansion in the fetal liver at E12.5 and E15.5. In contrast, generation of the first HSC population in the aorta-gonad-mesonephros region at E11.5 was not significantly affected. Furthermore, the HSC-supporting ability of both endothelial and stromal cells in fetal liver was significantly compromised in the absence of ATF4. Gene profiling using RNA-seq revealed down-regulated expression of a panel of cytokines in ATF4-/- stromal cells, including angiopoietin-like protein 3 (Angptl3) and vascular endothelial growth factor-A (VEGFA). To investigate the molecular pathways of ATF4 in the stromal cells and LSK cells in the fetal liver.
2015-11-20 | E-GEOD-66380 | biostudies-arrayexpress