Background
The Karyopherin protein superfamily consists of a large number of soluble transport factors that shuttle proteins and certain RNAs through the nuclear pore complex (NPC). Karyopherin β1 (Kpnβ1), the primary nuclear import protein in interphase cells, imports cargoes that contain a nuclear localisation sequence (NLS) across the nuclear membrane and into the nucleus [
1]. In the classical nuclear import pathway, recognition of an NLS, which most commonly consists of a number of clusters of basic amino acids and is termed the classical NLS (cNLS), by a Karyopherin α (Kpnα) isoform is required for Kpnβ1-mediated nuclear import [
2,
3]. After Kpnα binds to the NLS-containing cargo, forming a bridge between the cargo and Kpnβ1, Kpnβ1 interacts with nucleoporins (Nups) on the NPC to allow for transfer of the cargo through the channel. Once in the nucleus, binding of RanGTP results in dissociation of the trimeric complex and release of the cargo [
4]. Kpnβ1 and Kpnα are then recycled back to the cytoplasm for another round of nuclear import. Alternatively to classical nuclear import, some cargoes are able to bind Kpnβ1 directly (independent of Kpnα; non-classical pathway), or utilise other members of the Karyopherin β family for their nuclear import.
Studies have shown that in addition to its role as a nuclear importer, Kpnβ1 has an equally vital set of roles during mitosis, acting as a negative regulator for various mitotic processes from spindle assembly and regulation to nuclear membrane and nuclear pore reformation, where in most cases it is counter-regulated by the small regulatory GTPase, Ran [
5,
6]. Previous studies have shown that disruption of Kpnβ1 expression (by loss of endogenous Kpnβ1 through siRNA-mediated knockdown, or transient overexpression of Kpnβ1 using plasmid-based transfection), resulted in the appearance of distinct mitotic defects, such as multipolar spindles, chromosome misalignment, and lagging or mis-segregation of chromosomes in anaphase/telophase [
7‐
9]. These results suggest that a balance of Kpnβ1 expression may be necessary for correct cell functioning.
It has been shown that Kpnβ1 expression is elevated in cervical cancer tissue, as well as a number of transformed and cancer cell lines, suggesting its association with the cancer phenotype [
10‐
12] . We previously showed that inhibition of Kpnβ1 protein expression leads to cancer cell death via apoptosis [
10], and Kuusisto and Jans (2015) showed that faster growing tumour cells expressing high levels of Kpnβ1 are more dependent on, or “addicted to”, Kpnβ1 than their non-transformed counterparts [
13]. These results demonstrate that increased expression, and thus activity, of Kpnβ1 likely plays a role in cancer cell proliferation, making Kpnβ1 an attractive anticancer therapeutic target. Interestingly, siRNA-mediated knockdown of Kpnβ1 leaves normal cells relatively unaffected [
9,
10]. It is possible that cancer cells have devised a mechanism to cope with their increased metabolic and proliferative demands by enhancing expression of various proteins, among them Kpnβ1, potentially explaining why depletion of Kpnβ1 has such negative effects. In contrast, it appears as if normal cells are less reliant on Kpnβ1 for processes such as proliferation.
While a number of studies have revealed the importance of Kpnβ1 in cancer cell survival and proliferation, and described its potential as an anticancer target, the precise role that Kpnβ1 plays in cellular transformation and cancer progression is largely unclear. In this study, we investigated the biological effects associated with Kpnβ1 overexpression in order to further elucidate the relationship between Kpnβ1 and cancer progression. While it is evident from previous work that cancer cells require Kpnβ1 for their proliferation and survival, it is unclear whether overexpression of Kpnβ1 provides a growth advantage to cancer cells, or leads to phenotypes associated with cellular transformation. In this study, we show that Kpnβ1 overexpression in fact leads to negative effects associated with the functioning of cervical cancer cells, and thus a precise balance of Kpnβ1 expression and activity appears to be essential for the correct functioning of these cells. Disruption of this balance in either direction has detrimental effects on many cellular processes.
Methods
Cell lines and cell culture
The human cervical carcinoma cell lines, HeLa (ATCC CCL-2) and CaSki (ATCC CRL-1550), and normal primary (ARPE19) (ATCC CRL-2302) and immortalised (hTERT-RPE-1) (ATCC CRL-4000) epithelial cells were obtained from the American Type Culture Collection (ATCC). Cancer cells were cultured in Dulbecco’s Modified Eagle’s Medium (DMEM), supplemented with penicillin (100 U/ml), streptomycin (100 μg/ml) and 10% Fetal Calf Serum (FCS) (HiClone, Thermo Scientific, USA). Normal cells were cultured in DMEM/F12 media, supplemented with penicillin, streptomycin and 10% FCS. hTERT-RPE-1 cells were maintained in the presence of 10 μg/ml Hygromycin B. Cells were incubated at 37 °C in 5% CO2. Cancer cell lines were authenticated by DNA profiling using the Cell ID system (Promega, USA).
Generation of stable Kpnβ1 overexpressing cell lines
The plasmid used for overexpression of Kpnβ1 (pEFIRES-Kpnβ1-EGFP) was generated by inserting
SacI- and
NotI-digested human Kpnβ1-EGFP, released from the plasmid pEGFP-Kpnβ1 (kind gift from Patrizia Lavia, Institute of Molecular Biology and Pathology, National Research Council of Italy, Rome, Italy) [
7], into the pEFIRES plasmid (kind gift from Yosef Shaul, Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel) [
14]. The pEFIRES plasmid was used in order to allow for both the Kpnβ1-EGFP fusion gene and the puromycin resistance gene to be transcribed as a single mRNA transcript. The presence of an internal ribosome entry site (IRES) upstream of the puromycin resistance gene ensures that puromycin-resistant clones express high levels of the recombinant protein, Kpnβ1-EGFP. pEFIRES-EGFP was used as a control. For the establishment of cells stably expressing Kpnβ1-EGFP, cells were transfected with the pEFIRES-EGFP and pEFIRES-Kpnβ1-EGFP constructs using Genecellin Transfection Reagent (Celtic Molecular Diagnostics) or TransFectin Lipid Reagent (Bio-Rad), and thereafter positively transfected cells were selected with Puromycin (Calbiochem, Merck). Pools of stably transfected cells were maintained in 0.5 μg/ml Puromycin.
Fluorescence microscopy
To analyse EGFP-tagged protein localisation using fluorescent microscopy, cells were grown on glass coverslips and fixed in 4% paraformaldehyde. Coverslips were mounted onto glass slides using Mowiol. Images were captured using the AxioVision 4.7 software (Zeiss, Oberkochen, Germany) under 100 x oil immersion.
Western blot analysis
Western Blot analyses were performed using rabbit anti-Kpnβ1 (H300) (Santa Cruz Biotechnology, sc-11367), mouse anti-GAPDH (0411) (Santa Cruz Biotechnology, sc-47724), rabbit anti-GFP (FL) (Santa Cruz Biotechnology, sc-8334), rabbit anti-Cyclin A (H-432) (sc-751), rabbit anti-Cyclin D1 (HD11) (sc-246), rabbit anti-pHisH3 (Ser-10)-R (Santa Cruz Biotechnology, sc-8656), rabbit anti-Mcl-1 (H-260) (Santa Cruz Biotechnology, sc-20679), rabbit anti-E-cadherin (H-108) (Santa Cruz Biotechnology, sc-7870), mouse anti-Vimentin (V-9) (Santa Cruz Biotechnology, sc-6260), rabbit anti-PARP1/2 (H-250) (Santa Cruz Biotechnology, sc-7150), mouse anti-p53 (DakoCytomation, M7001), rabbit anti-p21 (H-164) (Santa Cruz Biotechnology, sc-756), rabbit anti-γH2AX (Ser-139) (Cell Signaling, 2577S), and rabbit anti-TFIID (TBP) (N-12) (Santa Cruz Biotechnology, sc-204) antibodies.
Luciferase assays
To assay for NFAT luciferase activity, cells were transfected with 50 ng GFP-NFAT (Addgene plasmid #24219; gift of Jerry Crabtree [
15]), 50 ng NFAT-luciferase (Addgene plasmid #10959; gift of Toren Finkel [
16]), and 5 ng pRL-TK (encoding
Renilla luciferase; Promega, USA). To assay for AP-1, NFκB p65 and p53 luciferase activity, cells were transfected with either 100 ng AP1-luciferase reporter construct (containing four copies of the AP-1 binding site; gift of Michael Birrer [
17]), 100 ng NFκB p65 luciferase reporter construct (containing 5 copies of the p65 binding site; Promega, USA) or 100 ng p53-luciferase reporter construct (Addgene plasmid #16442; gift of Bert Vogelstein [
18]), as well as 5 ng pRL-TK. For NFκB p65 luciferase assays, cells were stimulated with 0.5 μM PMA (Sigma-Aldrich, USA) for 3 h, at 24 h post transfection. Luciferase activity was assayed using the Dual-Luciferase Reporter assay system (according to the manufacturer’s instructions; Promega, USA). Luciferase readings measured using the Veritas microplate luminometer (Promega, USA) were normalised to
Renilla luciferase readings.
Trypan blue cell viability assays
To assay for the number of viable cells, cells were trypsinised and incubated with 0.4% Trypan Blue (Merck Millipore, USA). Viable (white) and non-viable (blue) cells were counted using a haemocytometer, and the number of live cells at various time points was recorded.
MTT proliferation assays
To allow for anchorage-independent growth, cells were resuspended in 1% methyl cellulose-containing media and were plated onto Poly (2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate) (Poly-HEMA) (Sigma-Aldrich, USA) coated 96-well plates. The number of colonies formed at various time points post plating were measured using the MTT reagent (according to the manufacturer’s instructions; Sigma-Aldrich, USA).
Adherent growth as a result of Kpnβ1 overexpression was determined using the MTT proliferation assay (according to the manufacturer’s instructions; Sigma-Aldrich, USA).
For the analysis of the effect of p53 and p21 inhibition on Cisplatin-induced cell death, cells were either co-treated with Pifithrin α (Sigma) and Cisplatin, or transfected with control or p21 siRNA (Santa Cruz Biotechnology), using Transfectin (BioRad, USA) transfection reagent, and treated with Cisplatin 48 h post-transfection. MTT assays were performed 24 h after Cisplatin treatment.
Cell cycle analysis
Cells were synchronised with 2 mM Thymidine (Sigma-Aldrich, USA), and released into fresh media. Cells (and floaters) were harvested and fixed in 100% ethanol overnight. Fixed cells were treated with 50 μg/ml RNase and stained with propidium iodide. Cell cycle profiles were analysed using a BD Accuri Flow Cytometer (Beckman Coulter, Fullerton, CA, USA). Quantification of the percentage of cells at different cell cycle stages was performed using the ModFit LT 3.3 software (Verity Software House, USA).
Phalloidin staining of F-actin
Cells were fixed and washed twice in 0.04% PBST before blocking in 1% BSA for 30 min. Actin was labeled with 50 ng/ml Phalloidin-Tetramethylrodamine B isothiocyanate (Phalloidin) (Sigma-Aldrich, USA) in 1% BSA for 30 min at room temperature. Cell nuclei were stained with 100 ng/ml DAPI and coverslips mounted onto glass slides using Mowiol. Phalloidin images were viewed using the Zeiss Inverted Fluorescence Microscope under 100 x oil immersion and images captured using the AxioVision 4.7 software (Zeiss, Germany).
Cell adhesion assays
Cells were plated on uncoated plates and allowed to adhere for 1 h at 37 °C. Thereafter, the medium was removed from all wells and ‘washed’ cells were rinsed twice with PBS before fixation of all cells in 0.5 ml fixation solution (acetic acid/methanol (1:7)) for 5 min followed by staining with 0.5% crystal violet solution for 2 h at room temperature. Plates were rinsed in water and left to dry overnight. The number of cells over various fields of view were counted using a light microscope and normalized to the number of ‘unwashed’ cells, in order to control for total cells plated.
In vitro scratch wound healing assay
Cells were grown to approximately 90% confluence, wounded (at time 0 h) using a pipette tip, and treated with 5 μg/ml Mitomycin C (Sigma). To record scratch wound closure, images were captured at 0, 3, 6 and 24 h time points and gap size measured. Each time point was normalized to the time 0 gap size.
IC50 determination assays
For the determination of drug IC50 values, cells were treated with varying concentrations of cisplatin for a period of 48 h, after which the MTT assay was performed (according to the manufacturer’s instructions; Sigma-Aldrich, USA). IC50 curves were generated using GraphPad Prism (GraphPad Software Inc., USA).
Nuclear and cytoplasmic protein fractionation
Cells were grown to 80% confluency, trypsinised, and the cell pellet resuspended in at least 6 volumes harvest buffer (10 mM HEPES, pH 7.9, 50 mM NaCl, 0.5 M Sucrose, 0.1 mM EDTA, 0.5% Triton X-100). Lysates were incubated on ice for 5 min, followed by centrifugation. The supernatant was kept aside as the cytoplasmic fraction, and the pellet was resuspended in 500 μl buffer A (10 mM HEPES, pH 7.9, 10 mM KCl, 0.1 mM EDTA, 0.1 mM EGTA). Centrifugation was performed followed by resuspension of the pellet in 4 volumes buffer C (10 mM HEPES, pH 7.9, 500 mM NaCl, 0.1 mM EDTA, 0.1 mM EGTA, 0.1% NP40). Samples were vortexed for 15 min, followed by centrifugation, whereupon the supernatant was kept as the nuclear extract.
Statistical analysis
For all data comparisons, the Student’s t test was performed using Microsoft Excel. Data was presented as the mean ± SEM. Unless where otherwise stated, experiments were performed in triplicate or quadruplicate and repeated at least three independent times. A p value of < 0.05 was considered statistically significant.
Discussion
Changes in gene expression patterns are a significant driver of cancer progression. Thus, the identification of genes and pathways involved in and/or altered in this process will not only improve our understanding of cancer initiation and development, but will also help in the identification of novel anticancer drug targets. Previous studies have revealed Karyopherin β1 (Kpnβ1), the primary nuclear import protein, to be significantly overexpressed in a variety of cancer types including cervical [
10], gastric [
30], and breast cancers [
13]. Furthermore, these studies reveal that inhibition of Kpnβ1 expression leads to cancer cell death, while inhibition in non-cancer cells has only a minor effect on cell viability [
10]. These results suggest that Kpnβ1 has potential as an anticancer therapeutic target, thus warranting further research into the association between Kpnβ1 expression and cancer progression.
To better understand the role that Kpnβ1 plays in malignant transformation, we investigated the effects of Kpnβ1 overexpression on various biological processes associated with cellular transformation. A stable Kpnβ1 overexpressing cell line was generated and shown to result in enhanced nuclear activity of known Kpnβ1 cargoes. Surprisingly, this did not translate into an enhanced cancer phenotype as anticipated, but rather suppressed cancer cell proliferation, delayed cell cycle progression, and altered cell morphology and actin reorganization, resulting in increased cell adhesion. This suggests that while overexpression of Kpnβ1 is required for the cancer phenotype, further overexpression suppresses the malignancy of cervical cancer cells. This could be due to a number of reasons; such as an imbalance in nuclear import and export, resulting in altered nuclear localisation of cargo proteins whose localisation is critical for cell functioning. Alternatively, upregulation of Kpnβ1 could result in increased nuclear import of tumour suppressor proteins; indeed, it has been found that Kpnβ1 overexpression resulted in an increase in the nuclear activity of p53, a known Kpnβ1 cargo protein [
21,
22]. Overexpression of Kpnβ1 may also result in the increased nuclear import of various other cell cycle proteins that are Kpnβ1 cargoes, such as cyclin B1 and cyclin E [
31], whose altered localisation could greatly impact cell cycle progression. Interestingly, Kpnβ1 overexpression did not result in an increase in cell death in these cells, therefore the effects seen were due a reduction in rate of proliferation rather than an induction of cell death. Ultimately, the nuclear transport process is a tightly regulated process that is critical for cell functioning. Altering this process, by increasing the expression of Kpnβ1 alone, has negative cellular consequences for cervical cancer cells.
Normal cells overexpressing Kpnβ1 also displayed reduced cell proliferation, suggesting that Kpnβ1 alone is insufficient to promote cancer behaviour. In contrast to our results, Kodama et al. (2017) showed that stable overexpression of Kpnβ1 in ovarian cancer cells resulted in a significant increase in cell proliferation, and these authors suggest that Kpnβ1 acts as an oncogene [
32]. It is possible that the effects observed due to Kpnβ1 overexpression may be specific to different cell types, and are likely subject to the levels of endogenous Kpnβ1 present in certain cell lines. Furthermore, while we show that the overexpressed Kpnβ1 in our study is functional, in that it results in the increased nuclear activity of Kpnβ1 cargoes, it is possible that the EGFP tag, fused to its C-terminus, may alter Kpnβ1 function or its ability to bind interaction partners, compared to the tag-less Kpnβ1 overexpressed by Kodama et al. (2017), hence contribute to the discrepancies between studies.
While Kpnβ1 overexpression alone appears to be insufficient to induce any of the biological phenotypes associated with cellular transformation, overexpression of additional members of the nuclear transport machinery may be required for cancer-associated changes. It is possible that in terms of nuclear import, cancer cells have already reached their maximum capability and thus further enhancement of various factors such as Kpnβ1, without strict control and regulation of all factors involved in nuclear transport (i.e. a precise balance), results in further cellular dysfunction.
A wide range of cancer processes have been shown to rely on Kpnβ1-mediated nuclear import. For example, a recent review shows how the Karyopherin proteins are involved in controlling a large number of epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) promoting pathways [
33]. Kpnβ1 has been shown to be involved in the nuclear translocation of a number of EMT-promoting proteins including Snail [
34], Smad [
35], and Notch [
36], all of which play a role in increasing cancer cell invasion and metastasis. In addition to this, Kpnβ1 has also been shown to play a role in actin cytoskeleton regulation, by regulating the interaction between an actin binding kinesin (NabKin) and F-actin, demonstrating that Kpnβ1 likely plays a role in influencing cytoskeletal elements and structure [
6,
37]. We showed that Kpnβ1 overexpression resulted in changes in cell morphology and actin reorganisation, with cells becoming smaller and more epithelial-like. In addition, Kpnβ1 overexpressing cells showed enhanced adhesion, as well as an increase in E-cadherin and decrease in Vimentin protein expression. These results suggest that overexpression of Kpnβ1 results in a mesenchymal-to-epithelial transition (MET), where cells transition from motile, more spindle-shaped mesenchymal cells to adherent, more compact/columnar epithelial cells. There is much evidence linking the EMT process with tumour progression and malignant transformation, as transitioning to a more mesenchymal state promotes cell invasion and metastasis (or cancer cell dissemination) [
38]. More recently, evidence has started to emerge supporting the concept that MET may be important for metastatic colonization, but research remains limited. Thus, it appears that overexpression of Kpnβ1, beyond that which is already elevated, has negative consequences for the proliferation, progression and metastatic potential of cancer cells.
To identify whether overexpression of Kpnβ1 resulted in any changes to the cancer cell response to cisplatin treatment, HeLa EGFP and Kpnβ1-EGFP cells were treated with cisplatin and the effects on various processes observed, including cell viability and apoptosis. Our results revealed that Kpnβ1 overexpressing HeLa cells showed significantly reduced viability after treatment with cisplatin, and were more prone to cisplatin-induced apoptosis when compared to HeLa EGFP cells. This could be due to enhanced nuclear import of cargo proteins required for the apoptotic process, for example p53 [
9,
28,
29]. p53 is involved in the activation of apoptosis induced by DNA-damaging agents, such as cisplatin [
39]. We showed that HeLa cells overexpressing Kpnβ1 showed higher levels of p53 when treated with cisplatin, compared to cells expressing EGFP, and that the same trend in expression was seen with the DNA damage marker, γH2AX. Examination of the expression levels of anti-apoptotic proteins p21 and Mcl-1, revealed that both proteins were reduced in response to cisplatin treatment, and the reduction was more prominent in cells overexpressing Kpnβ1, suggesting that these cells are more sensitive to apoptotic signals. We also showed that stable overexpression of Kpnβ1 in synchronized HeLa cells resulted in a decrease in (or degradation of) Mcl-1 expression. Interestingly, a number of recent studies have shown that inhibition of Mcl-1 expression sensitizes cancer cells to cisplatin-induced apoptosis [
40,
41]. We show that p21 inhibition sensitises cervical cancer cells to cisplatin treatment, which is in agreement with other studies showing that knockdown or inhibition of p21 expression significantly increases apoptosis of ovarian cancer and testicular cancer cells induced by cisplatin [
42,
43]. On the other hand, other studies have reported p21 overexpression to increase Cisplatin sensitivity in lung adenocarcinoma cells [
44,
45] and osteosarcoma cells [
46], thus it is clear that different cancer cells use different cellular mechanisms to govern Cisplatin responsiveness. We also show that despite the HPV positive nature of HeLa and CaSki cells (and thus low p53 activity), p53 inhibition reduces cervical cancer cell sensitivity to Cisplatin, suggesting a role for p53 in mediating Cisplatin-induced cell death. This is corroborated by other studies, which show a role for p53 in Cisplatin-induced apoptosis [
47]. However, p53, like p21, can exert anti-apoptotic effects in response to Cisplatin in other contexts [
48]. Taken together, in our study, p53 and p21 enhance and protect cervical cancer cells from Cisplatin-induced cell death, respectively, thus the higher p53 and lower p21 in the Kpnβ1-EGFP-overexpressing cells likely contributes, at least in part, to the increased sensitivity of these cells to Cisplatin. Interestingly, Kodama et al. (2017) recently showed that inhibition of Kpnβ1 expression, in combination with paclitaxel treatment, synergistically reduced cell proliferation/viability in ovarian cancer cells [
32].
Whilst we have previously shown that Kpnβ1 inhibition, genetically or pharmacologically, resulted in an induction of cervical cancer cell death and the appearance of mitotic defects [
9,
10,
25], others have reported that exogenously expressed Kpnβ1 induced mitotic abnormalities, resulting in genomic instability [
7,
8]. We report that Kpnβ1 overexpression results in increased levels of pSer10 Histone H3 in asynchronous cells, and delays cell cycle progression into G2/M in cells released from a thymidine block, suggesting that mitotic processes are somewhat impaired in these cells. However, further overexpression of Kpnβ1-EGFP, beyond that achieved in this study, resulted in distinct mitotic defects and cell death (data not shown), further reinforcing that Kpnβ1 overexpression is detrimental to cervical cancer cell biology. It is likely that cancer cells require a precise balance of Kpnβ1 expression, and that perturbation of this balance in either direction has deleterious effects on cancer cell survival.