Introduction
The formation of metastases that originate from a primary cancer is commonly associated with increased drug resistance and patient death (Fidler and Kripke
2015). EMT and the subsequent transition of cells back to the mesenchymal state have been associated with metastasis for decades (Nieto
2013; Zeisberg and Neilson
2009). However, there is an ongoing dispute whether EMT is a prime event in the metastatic process or whether the mesenchymal phenotype of breast and pancreatic cancer cells represents predominantly an indicator of cellular resistance to DNA damage (Aiello et al.
2017; Brabletz et al.
2018; Fischer et al.
2015; Ye et al.
2017; Zheng et al.
2015). Irrespective of this conceptual conflict, it is undoubted that novel drugs are necessary to combat clinical metastasis formation to enhance patient survival. Such drugs should be analyzed for their impact on both genomic integrity and modulation of EMT.
HDACi are epigenetic drugs that enhance protein acetylation and thereby impact a large number of cellular functions (Bayat Mokhtari et al.
2017; Mrakovcic et al.
2019; Müller and Krämer
2010; Nikolova et al.
2017; Vancurova et al.
2018). Since the Food and Drug Administration has approved four HDACi for the treatment of hematological malignancies, additional research is warranted to demonstrate how a pharmacological inactivation of HDACs affects metastasis formation. To solve this issue, global assays and analyses of various tumor cell types are required. We recently revealed that HDACi did not shift renal cell carcinoma (RCC) cells to a distinct epithelial or mesenchymal phenotype, but rather disrupted functional EMT/MET protein expression signatures and triggered apoptosis of RCC cells (Kiweler et al.
2018). These data are coherent with previous reports that show beneficial effects of HDACi against RCC cells and EMT (Chun
2018; Jones et al.
2009a,
b; Juengel et al.
2014; Mao et al.
2017). Furthermore, HDACi counteracted the acquired resistance of RCC cells against the mammalian target of rapamycin-inhibitor everolimus and the glucose-regulating biguanide metformin (Juengel et al.
2014; Wei et al.
2018). In light of the chemoresistance and the poor prognosis of metastatic RCC (Barbieri et al.
2017; Chang et al.
2019), these findings suggest that HDACi pose an interesting therapeutic option for this cancer type.
The analysis of drug-dependent effects on metastasis should also involve conditions that promote this process. The secreted cytokine TGFβ is a tumor suppressor in non-transformed cells through its cell cycle arresting activity. Tumor cells, including those from RCC, are insensitive to this effect of TGFβ and undergo metastasis-promoting EMT and acquire chemotherapy resistance (Hao et al.
2019; Singla et al.
2018; Tretbar et al.
2019). These processes can be abrogated with HDACi in RCC cells. The HDACi trichostatin-A (TSA) and butyrate suppressed TGFβ-induced EMT (Yoshikawa et al.
2007) and VPA prevented the TGFβ-dependent activation of the EMT-associated transcription factor SMAD4 (Mao et al.
2017). Such effects could be particularly relevant to tumors that are or become resistant to standard cancer drugs such as renal and lung tumors (Barbieri et al.
2017; Chang et al.
2019; Dietrich and Gerber
2016; Foy et al.
2017).
In light of the recent discussion on the impact of DNA repair and EMT for the metastatic process and its relation to acquired chemoresistance, and due to the influence of HDACi on the EMT of RCC cells, we set out to investigate if HDACi affect the expression of DNA repair proteins, including p53, and cell adhesion molecules. In addition, we investigated whether HDACi modulate TGFβ-induced cell plasticity and if the combination of HDACi and L-OHP or HU is effective against cancer cells.
Discussion
Our data illustrate that HDACi promote an induction of replicative stress and DNA damage in cultured cancer cells. This finding is coherent with previously published works, which illustrate that HDACs are required for the expression of factors mediating DNA damage, the recognition and repair of DNA lesions, and for scheduled origin firing (Conti et al.
2010; Miller et al.
2010; Nikolova et al.
2017; Noack et al.
2017; Wang et al.
2012; Wells et al.
2013). Our proteomics approach shows that the HDACi-induced accumulation of ɣH2AX in Renca cells is linked to a disturbed expression of proteins that stabilize DNA replication forks and contribute to DNA damage recognition and repair. For example, we demonstrate that VPA and MS-275 diminish the expression levels of RAD51, which is a key HR protein and a survival factor for cancer cells harboring damaged DNA. These findings are consistent with literature evidence from other tumor-derived cells (Göder et al.
2018; Krumm et al.
2016; Nikolova et al.
2017). The observed correlation between DNA damage and prolonged growth arrest of HDACi-treated Renca cells is coherent with DNA damage being a major trigger of cell cycle arrest (Kiweler et al.
2018; Lanz et al.
2019; Nikolova et al.
2017). Nevertheless, more investigations are necessary to assess the relative contribution of replication stress/DNA damage to HDACi-induced anti-proliferative effects. For instance, HDACi-induced alterations of proteins that control apoptosis and autophagy are further pathways through which HDACi might restrict tumor cell growth (Koeneke et al.
2015; Mrakovcic et al.
2019; Vancurova et al.
2018). Moreover, our proteome analyses show HDACi-induced alterations of proteins that control immune tolerance (Kiweler et al.
2018), raising the possibility that HDACi combat tumors through immune modulation.
Despite being a frequently used model system to analyze RCC in vitro and in vivo as syngeneic mouse model (Kiweler et al.
2018), the p53 status of Renca cells was undefined. While wild-type p53 is a short-lived protein, the majority of mutations in p53 are missense mutations that lead to the stable expression a p53 protein variant with a prolonged half-life (Conradt et al.
2012; Freed-Pastor and Prives
2012). We observed a strongly diminished expression of total p53 protein in Renca cells in comparison to a cell line expressing a defined mutant p53 isoform. This lower expression of p53 in Renca cells suggests its wild-type status. Our finding of an accumulation of p53 in doxorubicin treated Renca cells supports this notion. Nonetheless, one allele of p53 carries an ill-defined R210C exchange (Zeitouni et al.
2017). In general, p53 wild-type expression in Renca cells would correspond to the majority of cells derived from common renal cancers.
TP53 mutation rates in this disease are exceptionally low in comparison to other cancer types, with 2.5% for renal papillary-cell carcinoma and 2.4% for renal clear-cell carcinoma (Wang et al.
2017).
Since wild-type p53 can suppress tumorigenesis (Gottifredi and Wiesmüller
2018; Klusmann et al.
2016), the reduction of p53 in HDACi-treated Renca cells appears to be counterintuitive with the anti-proliferative effects of HDACi. However, p53 might not be inactivated and its reduction by HDACi is not complete. There is, for example, an accumulation of p21, which is positively regulated by p53, and a repression of survivin, which is negatively regulated by p53 in HDACi-treated Renca cells (Kiweler et al.
2018). Apparently, the reduction of total p53 may not necessarily lead to a suppression of p53 target gene regulation, because p53 is also activated by acetylation. For example, low and very active levels of acetylated p53 can drive the expression of its target genes and apoptosis upon replication stress and DNA damage in colorectal cancer cells (Brandl et al.
2012). On the other hand, we may also detect p53-independent growth arrest and cell death induction by HDACi in Renca cells, as seen in p53-negative colorectal cancer cells (Sonnemann et al.
2014). Moreover, replication stress triggers apoptosis and mitotic catastrophe after HDACi treatment despite a reduced expression of p53 and its target genes (Göder et al.
2018). One should additionally consider that there are even cases in which p53 antagonizes apoptosis induction (Barckhausen et al.
2014) and the HDACi-evoked loss of various DNA repair proteins including p53 may trigger cytotoxic DNA damage. In conclusion, the observed loss of p53 expression in HDACi-treated Renca cells is not linked to diminished cytotoxic responses or an induction of chemoresistance.
Two recent studies point out that the mesenchymal transition of transformed cells ties in with the resistance of pancreatic and breast cancer cells against DNA-damaging agents (Fischer et al.
2015; Zheng et al.
2015). So far, our data illustrate that HDACi themselves attenuate the expression of DNA repair and promote cell death of HU-treated RCC and NSCLC cultures. Studies including small groups of patients treated with HU and HDACi suggest that such combinatorial treatment might be successful (Bug et al.
2005; Müller and Krämer
2010). Undoubtedly, additional in vivo evidence is necessary to clarify the therapeutic validity of HDACi/HU combination treatment schedules. This also applies to the doses that can be achieved without significant toxicity in RCC patients. A recent report found that up to 1.51 µM MS-275 was achieved without gross toxicity in mice, but large variation of maximal plasma concentrations from 4 to 53.1 ± 92.4 and a half-life from 33.4 to 150 h occurred in humans (Connolly et al.
2017; Kurmasheva et al.
2019), indicating unexplained large patient-to-patient variability. The maximum-tolerated dose of VPA was reported to range, for example, from 50 mg/kg daily to 140 mg/kg/day, which is within the therapeutic serum concentrations of VPA from 0.35 to 0.7 mM (Bug et al.
2005; Münster et al.
2007; Phiel et al.
2001).
In addition to the effects of HDACi on replication stress/DNA damage, their impact on EMT needs to be investigated. Preceding work demonstrated a dysregulation of various proteins that control cell adhesion and migratory properties in RCC cells following class I HDAC inhibition (Kiweler et al.
2018) and we verify an HDACi-mediated downregulation of integrin-β1 in Renca cells. This finding is coherent with the literature that reports an inhibition of integrin-α/β expression and their downstream signaling pathways in HDACi-treated RCC cells (Jones et al.
2009b). However, a plethora of additional factors determines EMT in HDACi-treated cells. For example, we see that HDACi decrease RhoA, which regulates EMT and interacts with HDACs (Mertsch and Krämer
2017). Likewise, proteomics suggests an HDACi-induced increase in the inducible transcription factor STAT1 in Renca cells and we found that such an accumulation of STAT1 contributes to apoptosis in HDACi-treated melanoma cells (Krämer et al.
2006). Another example is ACK1, for which evidence collected in various tumor types suggests a pro-tumorigenic role (Chua et al.
2010; Jenkins et al.
2018; Mahajan and Mahajan
2015; Mahajan et al.
2018). Furthermore, data collected with gastric and liver cancer cells show that ACK1 is overexpressed in primary clinical specimen and that ACK1 promotes the invasive capacity and EMT of such tumor cells through its direct activating effects on AKT kinases (Lei et al.
2015; Xu et al.
2015). AKT also contributes to the spread of RCC cells into bone tissue and a hyperstabilized, mutant ACK1 isoform promotes hallmarks of cancer in RCC cells (Chua et al.
2010). Hence, the reduction of ACK1 by HDACi could cause anti-proliferative, therapeutically relevant effects. We found that HDACi decrease ACK1 by a caspase-dependent mechanism in leukemic cells (Mahendrarajah et al.
2016) and we see that the decline in ACK1 is linked to apoptosis of Renca cells [(Kiweler et al.
2018) and this study]. Accordingly, the loss of ACK1 could occur through caspase-dependent degradation. Additional experiments are necessary to clarify whether ACK1 degradation in renal cancer presents a functional signal for cell growth reduction, cell death induction, and metastasis or poses a downstream marker of cell death.
TGFβ-induced EMT signaling promotes metastasis, chemoresistance, angiogenesis, and immune evasion of tumor cells (Hao et al.
2019). Although the treatment with TGFβ induces N-cadherin in other cell lines (Mikami et al.
2016; Zeisberg and Neilson
2009), Renca cells do not express the TGFβ receptor-II (Engel et al.
1999) and, therefore, fail to accumulate N-cadherin. Such a loss of TGFβ receptor II is also seen in 31 out of 62 RCC patients and correlates with a lower apoptotic index and statistically significant lower survival rates (Miyajima et al.
2003). The expression of E-cadherin, the cytoplasmic localization of β-catenin (Kiweler et al.
2018), and the absence of the mesenchymal marker N-cadherin (this work) verify that Renca cells remain epithelial cells independent of HDACi treatment. In contrast to this, HDACi suppress TGFβ-induced N-cadherin expression in mammary epithelial cells and HDACi decrease basal N-cadherin expression in primary human RCC cells. Our finding that both epithelial (Renca cells) and mesenchymal (Mz-ccRCC2 cells) respond with an induction of cell death to class I HDACi shows that such drugs can kill cells having either differentiation status. Further studies are underway to address if HDACi shift transformed cells to certain molecular signatures of one of the states and thereby eliminate them.
Taken together, our work illustrates that class I HDACi evoke DNA damage and suppress the metastasis-associated phenotype. These data suggest exploiting HDACi further for the treatment of cancer.
Materials and methods
Cell culture conditions and drugs
Fetal calf serum (FCS) was from Gibco Invitrogen Life Technologies, Darmstadt, Germany (catalogue numbers 102270/10270106, EU approved origin: South America, lots. 41Q8207K/42G8258K). Renca cells grow at 37 °C and 5% CO
2 in RPMI medium (Sigma-Aldrich, Munich, Germany) supplemented with 10% FCS, 1% penicillin/streptomycin and 2% glutamine. NM18 and H1299-TO-p53 cells grow at 37 °C and 5% CO
2 in DMEM medium (Sigma-Aldrich, Munich, Germany) supplemented with 10% FCS and 1% penicillin/streptomycin; 1% glutamine and 5 µg/mL insulin were added to NM18 cells. Renca cells were obtained from Prof. W. Wels, GSH Frankfurt/Main, Germany (derived from a spontaneously developed renal cortical adenocarcinoma in a male Balb/c mouse; ATCC® CRL-2947™). PPT-5436 were developed in the group of one of the coauthors (G.S.). These are a low passage cell line from primary pancreatic tumors of a
PTF1a/p48ex1Cre/+;LSL-KRASG12D/+;LSL-p53R172H+/+;LSL-R26Tva−lacZ/− mouse. H1299-TO-p53 were given to us by Dr. G. Rohaly, HPI, Hamburg, Germany. These are a derivative of NCI-H1299 (ATCC® CRL-5803™) cells, which are epithelial cells from a metastatic site lymph node of a lung carcinoma of a male patient. NM18 cells are a subclone of NMuMG cells (ATCC® CRL-1636™), which were isolated by their strong response to TGFβ by Deckers et al. (
2006). NMuMG cells are epithelial mammary gland cells from a Namru strain mouse. Mz-ccRCC2 renal tumor cells were isolated as described in Haber et al. (
2015) from tumor specimens that were obtained shortly after nephrectomy. Tumor tissue was dissociated mechanically and with 1 mg/ml collagenase II, pressed through a cell strainer (70 μm) and centrifuged under sterile conditions. The obtained cells were first cultured in AmnioMAX C100 Basal Medium including AmnioMAX C100 Supplement (Gibco, Life Technologies, Darmstadt, Germany). After the first passage, they were transferred to DMEM medium supplemented with 10% FCS and 1% penicillin/streptomycin and cultured at 37 °C and 5% CO
2; i.e., conditions as for Renca cells. The epithelial origin was confirmed by immunohistochemical cytokeratin staining. For the experiments, the cells were used in passages 2–8. No commonly mischaracterized cells were used and cells were tested free of mycoplasma every 4–8 weeks. TGFβ and VPA were purchased from Sigma-Aldrich, Germany. Entinostat was purchased from Selleckchem, Germany.
Database search for p53 in Renca cells
To search for information on the p53 status of Renca cells, we considered the International Agency for Research on Cancer TP53 Database (IARC,
https://p53.iarc.fr/), the Catalogue Of Somatic Mutations In Cancer (COSMIC,
https://cancer.sanger.ac.uk/cosmic), the Cancer Cell Line Encyclopedia (CCLE,
https://portals.broadinstitute.org/ccle), the American Type Culture Collection (ATCC,
https://www.atcc.org), the
TP53 website cell line compendium (
https://p53.fr), and Charles River (Zeitouni et al.
2017). Reanalysis of WES data is based on accession no. PRJEB12925 (Mosely et al.
2017).
Protein lysates, Western blot, densitometric analysis, and antibodies
We have recently summarized the Western blot method used to collect data shown here (Stojanovic et al.
2017). Data acquisition was performed with the Odyssey Infrared Imaging System (Licor), using IRDye® 680RD-coupled or IRDye® 800CW-coupled secondary antibodies. Immunoblots are representative of at least two independent experiments. The following antibodies were used: Cell Signaling Technology (Frankfurt/Main, Germany): cleaved caspase-3/#9661, caspase-6/#9762, E-cadherin/#3195; Enzo Life Sciences (Lörrach, Germany): HSP90/ADI-SPA-830-F; Merck Millipore (Darmstadt, Germany): AB1952; Santa Cruz Biotechnology (Heidelberg, Germany): ACK1/sc-28336, pS139-H2AX/sc-101696 (ɣH2AX), β-actin/sc-47778, P53/sc81168; Abcam: RAD51/ab63801; BD Bioscience (Heidelberg, Germany): N-cadherin/BD610921.
Cell cycle and cell death analysis
Cells were harvested with trypsin/EDTA and fixed with 80% ethanol. Samples were then stored at − 20 °C for at least 2 h. Thereafter, cells were incubated with RNAse A (Carl Roth; final concentration 20 µg/mL) for 1 h at RT and stained with propidium iodide (PI) (Sigma-Aldrich; final concentration 16.5 µg/mL) for 10 min on ice. Annexin V/PI staining was performed according to the manufacturer’s instructions with Annexin V-FITC (Becton Dickinson) and PI at RT for 15 min in the dark. Cells were subjected to flow cytometry with the FACSCanto Flow Cytometer (BD Biosciences). Data were analyzed with the FACSDIVA™ Software (BD Biosciences).
Immunofluorescence to detect N-cadherin
NM18 cells were seeded on chamber coverslips (µ-Slide 8-well, iBidi) and treated with 1.5 mM VPA or 5 µM MS-275, 5 ng/mL TGFβ, or combinations thereof for 48 h. Cells were washed thrice with phosphate-buffered saline (PBS), and fixed for 20 min in 4% paraformaldehyde. After cell permeabilization using 0.1% Triton X-100 in PBS for 10 min, cells were stained for 1 h at RT using α-N-cadherin antibody (BD Bioscience) 1:100 in PBS + 1% FCS. After incubation, slides were washed three times for 5 min in PBS and incubated for 1 h at RT with α-mouse Cy3 secondary antibody (Dianova). DNA/cell nuclei were visualized by staining with 0.5 µg/mL Hoechst-33258 (Sigma-Aldrich). Observation, image acquisition, and analysis of stained cells were performed using AxioVert 200 M, a digital AxioCam CCD camera and Axiovision software (Carl Zeiss, Jena, Germany).
Proteomics and pathway analysis
NuPAGE® LDS Sample Buffer (1×) supplemented with 100 µM DTT was added to treated cells and controls. Lysates were subjected to mass spectrometry (Dejung et al.
2016) for protein detection. Proteins were run on gels and digested with mass spectrometry-grade trypsin (Sigma-Aldrich, St. Louis, Missouri) and purified with a StageTip. Data were analyzed with Maxquant v1.5.2.8 using LFQ, ENSEMBL GRCm38 peptide database (57,751 entries), and custom R scripts. (Dejung et al.
2016). Full proteomics data are available upon scientific request. Preceding statistical analysis by R software version 3.2 using unpaired
t test (two conditions) or one-way ANOVA (multiple conditions) resulted in an individual set of significantly regulated proteins. The background set was composed of all proteins successfully quantified in the experiment (5812 proteins). For each set of significantly regulated proteins, three hypergeometric tests (for biological processes, for molecular functions, and for cellular components) were performed using the R package “GOstats”. By this means, it was determined if the GO terms that were associated with significantly changing genes were over-represented over the defined background (Falcon and Gentleman
2007). For each protein listed, the Entrez gene ID was obtained using the annotation R package “BiomaRt”; see also cells (Kiweler et al.
2018).
Determination of mRNA transcripts
The primer sequences that we used to determine p53 transcript numbers were AGAGACCGCCGTACAGAAGA (forward)/CTGTAGCATGGGCATCCTTT (reverse); β-actin: GTCGAGTCGCGTCCACC (forward)/GTCATCCATGGCGAACTGGT (reverse). Isolation of total RNA was carried out by means of the RNeasy Mini-Kit (Qiagen, Hilden, Germany). To quantify the relative gene expression by ∆∆-Ct method, 20 ng cDNA and 100 nM primer mix (MWG Biotech, Ebersberg, Germany) were mixed together with the Power SybrGreen master mix and applied to the StepOnePlus real-time PCR device (Applied Biosystems/Thermo Fischer, Frankfurt/Main, Germany). Primer efficiencies were previously determined by the formula 10(−1/slope). All experiments were carried out in technical and biological triplicates.
Statistical analysis
One-way ANOVA/two-way ANOVA were used as indicated for the respective experiments (GraphPad Prism Vers.6.01) and corrected for multiple testing using Dunnett’s test or Bonferroni’s multiple comparisons test. Two-paired t test with Welch’s correction was used when not more than two conditions were compared and for proteomics as comparison with untreated samples. p values are indicated in the legends.
Acknowledgements
Open Access funding provided by Projekt DEAL. We thank Franziska Müller, Christina Brachetti, and Andrea Piée-Staffa (ITOX Mainz, Germany) for excellent technical support; Mandy Beyer (ITOX Mainz, Germany) for help with statistics; Dr. Mario Dejung (IMB Mainz, Germany) for help with proteomics. We are indebted to Prof. W. Wels, GSH Frankfurt/Main, Germany, Dr. G. Rohaly, HPI, Hamburg, Germany, and Deckers and colleagues, University Medical Center, Leiden, The Netherlands, for cell lines. This study was mainly supported by grants to OHK from the Wilhelm Sander-Stiftung (#2010.078). The group of OHK is additionally supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (#KR2291/7-1/8-1/9-1), funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) – Project-ID 393547839 – SFB 1361, and received intramural funding from the NMFZ Mainz and the University Medical Center Mainz.
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