Background
Lung cancer in the world is the most commonly diagnosed carcinoma and becomes a paramount cause of cancer death, which is frequently associated with poor clinical outcomes [
1‐
3]
.. Despite progress and development of new treatment and drugs, only 17.7% of all patients with lung cancer are alive ≥5 years after diagnosis [
1,
3]. Immune cells are thought to be inactivated in tumor microenvironment, via the engagement of inhibitory receptors such as the famous Cytotoxic T-Lymphocyte Associated Protein 4(CTLA4) and Programmed cell death protein 1 (PD-1) [
4‐
6]. Blocking immune checkpoints such as PD-L1 and PD-1 has improved the treatment of non -small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) [
7]. Increasing clinical evidence shows that interaction between PD-1 and PD-L1 inhibits activation, expansion and effector functions of CD8+ T cells, and helps cancer cells evade immune destruction in the tumor microenvironment that is unfavorable to anti-cancer activities [
8]. In addition, it is well known that the relation between microenvironment and immunology plays a vital role in the clinical treatment of NSCLC patients [
9‐
11]. Activated CD8+ T cells have been demonstrated to have anti-cancer immunity in many different types of cancer [
12,
13]. The presence of activated CD8+ T cells within the tumor and in the peritumoral stroma has been shown to have significant positive prognostic importance [
14]. However, PD-1/PD-L1 inhibitor in clinical blockade has been limited by the response rate of about ∼20–30% in patients with NSCLC [
15,
16]. The cancer microenvironment makes a vital role in the utility of immunotherapy [
17‐
19]. Increasing clinical evidence has also shown that tumor-infiltrating CD8+ lymphocytes (TILs) in the tumor environment is associated with survival of patients with cancer, further supporting the close relationship between immune escape and tumor microenvironment [
20‐
22].
Increasing evidence has indicated that MUC1-C plays a critical role in anti-cancer properties; for example, the transcriptional regulation of genes associated with tumor invasion [
23], proliferation, metastasis [
24], angiogenesis [
24], apoptosis, inflammation [
25], and drug resistance [
26,
27] have been linked to poor outcomes in lung cancer [
20]. Cancer cells usually have a high expression of MUC1-C and abnormal glycosylation of MUC1-C protein which is also overexpressed in human lung cancers and associated with a poor outcome [
28]. Silencing the MUC1-C can improve the anticancer effect on lung and breast cancer [
20,
28]. Accumulating evidence shows that MUC1-C regulates many genes, such as PD-L1, that promote the evasion of NSCLC cells and inhibit the effect of immune cells [
29,
30]. Therefore, MUC1-C is a target for the downregulation of PD-L1 in NSCLC cells [
31]. However, the effect of evodiamine on MUC1-C remains underexplored.
Evodiamine is a novel alkaloid, which was isolated from the fruit of
Tetradium [
32], and it has been considered an effective Chinese medicine for the treatment of gastropathy, hypertension, and eczema [
33]. Several studies reported that evodiamine has various biological effects, including anti-nociceptive, anti-bacterial, anti-obesity and anti-cancer activities [
34‐
36]. However, to date, the effect of evodiamine on the PD-1/PD-L1 axis remains underexplored.
In this study, the effects of evodiamine on cell viability, cell cycle, and apoptosis in the human NSCLC cell lines were investigated and the underlying mechanisms are further explored. More importantly, the anticancer and immunomodulatory activities of evodiamine in the human NSCLC cells in vitro and in vivo models are carefully examined. Our results confirm the efficacy of combining evodiamine and anti-PD-1 mAb treatment against NSCLC cells. Our research also explored the involvement of MUC1-C/PD-L1 signaling of evodiamine in anti-lung cancer. Evodiamine can improve immunity in vivo by inhibiting PD-L1 expression in cancer. Therefore, our findings disclose the inhibition of evodiamine anti-NSCLC, which might have potential clinical implications.
Materials and method reagents
Materials
Evodiamine was supplied by Selleck Chemicals (Houston, TX, USA) and was dissolved in dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) and stored at − 20 °C. Primary antibodies against GAPDH (#5174), PD-L1(#13684), MUC1-C(#16564), C-MYC(#18583) were provided by Cell Signaling Technology (Danvers, MA, USA). Fluorescein secondary antibodies were provided by LI-COR Biosciences (Lincoln, NE, USA). Dead Cell Apoptosis Kit with Annexin V-FITC/PI were provided by BD Biosciences (San Jose, CA, USA).
Cell lines and cell culture
The proliferation of lung cancer cells was assessed using the MTT assay as described previously [
37]. After treatment of 72 h, 20 μl MTT (5 mg/ml) solution was added to each well and incubated for 4 h. Then, 100 μl of the DMSO was added to each well. Finally, the colorimetric intensity of the plates was measured at the wavelength of 570 nm by the Tecan microplate reader (Morrisville, NC, USA).
Flow cytometric analysis
Apoptosis was analysis as described previously [
38]. After treatment of 24 h, the percentage of apoptotic cells on evodiamine-treated NSCLC was analyzed using a BD FACSAria III flow cytometer. The percentages of the sub-G1, S, G1 and G2 phases cells were quantitatively determined using flow cytometer. For cell surface PD-L1 on lung cancer cell lines, cells after treatment were suspended in FACS stain buffer and incubated with APC anti-human CD274 at 4 °C for 30 min and cells were resuspended, and measured analyzed using flow cytometer.
Western blot analysis
The detailed procedure was reported previously [
37]. The following antibodies were used in this experiment: GAPDH, MUC1-C (D5K9I) XP, PD-L1 and C-MYC. The protein expression was analyzed by using an LI-COR Odyssey scanner (Belfast, ME, USA).
H1975 and H1650 co-cultured with PBMC
Human peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC)/H1975 and H1650 cells were seeded at a density of 3 × 104 cells. PBMCS were isolated from healthy donors by using Ficoll-Paque density centrifugation. Then, the obtained peripheral blood lymphocytes were added to the co-culture system at a ratio of 2:1. PBMC/lung cancer cell H1975 /H1650 co-cultured cells in six well plates were treated with evodiamine or vehicle. PBMC/H1975 (CshRNA), H1975 (MUC1-CshRNA) co-cultured cells and PBMC/H1650 (CshRNA), H1650(MUC1-CshRNA) co-cultured cells in 6 well plates were treated with evodiamine or vehicle. Cells were treated with evodiamine for 48 or 72 h. Afterward, lymphocyte cells were harvested from the co-culture system, and the T cells were stained for apoptosis assay.
Transient transfection assay
Cells were transfected by using lentiviral vectors with control shRNAand MUC1-CshRNA. Puromycin was used for optimal selection of the transfected cells. For flow cytometry for cell cycle and apoptosis analysis, cells were stained with antibody in stain buffer for 30 min (in the dark at 4 °C). Cells were analyzed by BD FACSAria III flow cytometer (BD Biosciences). The surface expression of PD-L1 and MUC1-C were detected with flow cytometry.
Protein extraction and western blotting
H1975 were treated with evodiamine for 24 h, and protein was extracted from cells by using NE-PER™ Nuclear and cytoplasm extraction reagents (Thermo Fisher Scientific, Waltham, MA, USA). The expression of PD-L1 and MUC1-C on H1975 was detected using Western blotting.
Using quantitative real-time RT-PCR to detect the mRNA expression
After Total RNA isolated, cDNAs were synthesized by a cDNA Reverse Transcription SuperMix Kit (Bio-RAD) Using the Power SYBR Green PCR Master Mix (Roche) to detect the PD-L1 and MUC1-C mRNA expression. Primers used for qPCR were reported previously [
39].
H1975 and H1650 cells were transfected with PD-L1 promoter-Luciferase reporter expression (pD-L1-Luc) or mock vehicle (Active Motif). After treated with evodiamine for 48 h, the cells were lysed and analyzed by using the Dual-Luciferase® Reporter Assay System (Promega, Madison, Wisconsin, USA).
IL-2 assays
H1975 and H1975 MUC1-C knockout were treated with IFN-γ for 24 h. Jurkat cells were activated and added to H1975 and H1650 cells at a ratio of 2:1 or 4:1 Jurkat: H1975/H1650. The cell culture media were collected, and the IL-2 expression was measured using ELISA-kit and flow cytometry.
Immunohistochemistry
Lung cancer patient and mouse lung cancer samples were processed for the staining of MUC1-C, PD-L1, CD4, CD8. Immunohistochemical images were captured and the numbers of MUC1-C, CD4, PD-L1, CD8, IFN-γ and Granzyme B positive cells in sections were counted.
Tumor xenograft studies and Lewis lung carcinoma model
Animal experiments were performed in accordance with the guidelines by the care and use of laboratory Animals. H1975 xenografts on female C57BL/C mice were treatment with 10, 20, 30 mg/kg of evodiamine and xenografts were allowed to grow for over 1 week when tumors were detectable with calipers before treatment by gavages.
For the Lewis lung carcinoma model, the Lewis lung carcinoma cells (5 × 105 cells) were intravenously injected into female C57BL/C mice at age 8–10 weeks. Single-cell suspensions of tumors and blood and spleen cells were stained, and cells were acquired using a flow cytometer and analyzed with flowJo software to detect tumor multiplicity in the lung.
Immunohistochemistry
Human tissue of patient with NSCLCwere collected from 2014 to 2017 in Taihe Hospital. Immunohistochemistry analyses were performed using an DAKO EnVision system as described previously. The following antibodies were used: MUC1-C from Cell Signaling (catalog no. #16564). This study about patients with NSCLC was approved by the ethics committee of Hubei Taihe Hospital.
Statistical analysis
All data in this article were expressed as the mean ± SD of three individual experiments. Differences between groups were determined by one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) by Graph Pad Prism 8 followed by the Bonferroni test to compare all pairs of columns. When P < 0.05, the results were considered to be statistically significant in this study. Survival rates of mice in our experiment were generated based on the Kaplan–Meier method, statistical significance was determined by the log-rank test, P value < 0.05 is considered statistically significant.
Discussion
In the present study paper, we demonstrated that evodiamine not only significantly inhibits proliferation and increases apoptotic but also shows good anti-tumor activity, which reduces tumor size in H1975 tumor xenograft and Lewis lung carcinoma model,. We demonstrated that knock out the MUC1-C in H1650 and H1975, both expressing high MUC1-C, can increase IC50 of evodiamine effected on these two cell lines. In our experiment, we observed the inhibitory effect of PD-L1 mRNA and membrane PD-L1 following treatment with evodiamine in IFN-γ stimulation H1650 and H1975. Activation PD-L1 could, through the PD-L1/PD-1 axis could induce the T cells apoptosis in the co-culture system. Evodiamine could downregulate the PD-L1 expression to diminish the apoptosis of T cells. It inhibited MUC1-C expression and potentiated CD8+ T-cell effector function. Evodiamine exhibited anti-tumor activity by elevating of CD8+ T cells in vivo in the Lewis lung carcinoma model. We observed that combination of evodiamine and anti-PD-1 mAb treatment enhanced tumor growth control and survival.
The potential impact of Chinese herbal medicines and their ingredients in numerous types of tumor treatment has attracted widespread attention [
41]. Extensive investigations demonstrated that evodiamine, an alkaloid extracted from
Euodia rutaecarpa, inhibit the proliferation of various tumors and induce tumor cell apoptosis [
42]. Evodiamine isthe one of the most popular, multi-purpose Chinese herbal medicine for the treatment of many indications, including headaches, menstruation disorder, amenorrhea, abdominal, pain, diarrhea, vomiting, postpartum hemorrhage, gastrointestinal disorders and others [
43‐
45]. Evodiamine, as a novel occurring indole alkaloid with attractive multi-targeting antiproliferative activity, has been investigated as a leading compound that possesses multi-targeting profiles [
43,
44,
46]. Evodiamine derivatives with Novel boron-containing were designed, which have improved the anti-tumor potency of the evodiamine and showed a good antitumor activity in vitro and in vivo by reactive oxygen species (ROS) [
43]. More and more evidence have reported that evodiamine has inhibitory effects on lung tumor growth and metastasis by suppressed cell viability, induced G2/M cell cycle arrest and inhibited cell migration [
45]. However, the anti-cancer mechanisms of evodiamine on the immune checkpoint PD-1/PD-L1 axis and its immune effects remain underexplored until now. We confirmed that in the current study evodiamine increases cell apoptosis in NSCLC in a MUC1-C-dependent manner. Evodiamine has a good anti-cancer tumor function by inhibiting NF-κB [
47,
48]. A Bouillez reported that MUC1-C can drives the transcription of CD274 in tumor cells through NF-κBp65 or C-MYC on the PD-L1 promoter, resulting in integrating PD-L1 activation on cancer cells with suppression of immune effectors on T cells and then helping cancer cells immune evasion and poor clinical outcome [
31,
39]. Our data demonstrated that evodiamine could downregulate MUC1-C and decrease the PD-L1 promoter in H1975 and H1650 cells (Extended Data Fig.
2B and Extended Data Fig.
6), leading to inhibiting MUC1-C expression and potentiating CD8
+ T-cell effector function.
Tumor vaccine fused with soluble PD-1 with the MUC1 gene showed good immunogenicity and anti-tumor effect by enhancing the activation of lymphocytes, and accumulates CD8
+ tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes, resulting in reduced in tumor growth [
49,
50]. MUC1 has been considered a possible immunotherapeutic target. TG4010, a therapeutic cancer vaccine, expressing MUC1 as well as interleukin 2, and is combine with PD-L1 immune inhibitor nivolumab, has been approved by the FDA for the first-line treatment of patients with NSCLC [
51]. Chimeric antigen receptors (CARs) targeting T cells to MUC1 were developed and demonstrated the therapeutic efficacy of CAR T cells directed against Tn-MUC1 and presented aberrantly glycosylated antigens as a clinical trial to target solid cancers which express MUC1 with CAR T cells [
52‐
54]. Consistently, Xiuling Xu reported that knockdown of MUC1-C expression in A549 and H460 effectively increases the sensitivity of these cells to the apoptotic cytotoxicity of anti-cancer therapeutics, suggesting that MUC1-C may contribute to acquired chemoresistance [
28]. IFN-γ, an important cytokine in tumor microenvironments, is secreted from various types of immune cells such as T cells, activate macrophages, and B cells and natural killer (NK) cells. IFN-γ could potentially increase the expression of PD-L1 in tumor cells, which biding with PD-1, in resulting inhibiting activation, expansion, and effector functions of CD8+ T cells and helps cancer cells evade immune destruction so that to contribute to tumor immune evasion. Similarly, in our T cell-mediated lung cancer cell killing assays, evodiamine-treated H650 and H1975 cells displayed enhanced sensitivity towards activated Jurkat T cells. In our study, evodiamine could block the interaction of the PD-1/PD-L1 axis, resulting in a significant increase of IL-2 secreted detected from co-cultures. In addition to its impact on cell membrane signaling, MUC1-C is imported to the nucleus, where it associates with a different transcription factor, including p53, NF-κB p65, STAT1/3, c-MYC, HIF-1 among others. Xiuling Xu reported that knockdown of MUC1-C expression in A549 and H460 effectively increased the sensitivity of these cells to the apoptotic cytotoxicity of anti-cancer therapeutics, suggesting that MUC1-C may contribute to acquired chemoresistance. In our study, we found that silencing the MUC1-C in H1975 and H1650, both expressing high MUC1-C, can attenuate the cytotoxicity effect of Evodiamine. MUC1-C is a transmembrane subunit of the MUC1 glycoprotein, which can translocate into the nucleus and trigger expression of other cancer-related oncogenes. Interestingly, we also observed an inhibitory effect of Evodiamine on the expression of PD-L1 mRNA and membrane PD-L1 following IFN-γ stimulation. Similarly, we found that evodiamine inhibits the translocation of MUC1-C to the nucleus and suppress PD-L1 expression as well in the nuclei of NSCLC cells with IFN-γ-caused PD-L1 expression [
31]. Evodiamine inhibits MUC1-C expression in the nucleus, where it associates with various transcription factor [
55].
MUC1-C is a transmembrane glycoprotein, which is aberrantly expressed in > 80% Stage IB NSCLC [
31,
55,
56]. Our IHC results are incompatible with those mentioned above. It should be noted that stage IB lung carcinomas were involved in Dongrong Situ et al.’s study [
31]. By contrasts, our study focused on population of patients with I–IV lung carcinomas diseases, including adenocarcinoma and Squamous Cell Cancer (Table.
1). We found the MUC1-C expression has high positive rates in female, non-smoker patients with advanced stage patients. Here, We reported a novel finding that evodiamine inhibits PD-L1 expression in lung adenocarcinoma by targeting MUC1-C. Suppression of MUC1-C expression via MUC1-C shRNA resulted in a decrease of PD-L1 protein and mRNA expression [
57]. Evodiamine can also decrease MUC1-C and PD-L1 protein and mRNA levels in NSCLC through inhibiting MUC1-C expression. Silencing MUC1 is associated with a C-MYC decrease of PD-L1 mRNA expression, suggesting that MUC1-C regulation of PD-L1 is likely mediated by transcriptional mechanism [
31]. GO203, targeting MUC1-C, can suppress PD-L1 expression of NSCLC and breast cancer, and induces effectors of innate and adaptive immunity, resulting in improve anticancer effects [
31] We determined that evodiamine can block PD-L1 expression on mRNA and protein levels, perhaps through inhibiting the MUC1-C. Silencing MUC1-C in H1975 decreases apoptosis following evodiamine treatment. Currently, several preclinical and clinical trials for the combination of other therapy with immune inhibitors in the treatment patients reveal biomarkers of response and resistance to anti-PD-1 monotherapy and combined anti-CTLA-4 and anti-PD-1 immunotherapy, significantly improve the anti-tumor effect [
6,
58‐
61]. Collectively, the combination of evodiamine and PD-1 mAb treatment enhance anti-cancer and survival in a Lewis lung carcinoma model.
Publisher’s Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.