Background
Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the sixth common malignancies worldwide and the third leading cause of cancer-associated mortality [
1‐
5]. Although advances in diagnostic techniques and instrumentation of oncology have improved the early diagnosis of HCC, the median survival of patients with this disease is still low. Recently, a number of molecular targeted drugs have been illustrated to be promising agents in prolonging the overall survival of patients with advanced HCC. Particularly, as a multikinase inhibitor of Raf/MEK/ERK signaling and the receptor tyrosine kinases (RTKs), sorafenib leads to a survival benefit for patients through reducing tumor angiogenesis and increasing cancer cell apoptosis [
6‐
9]. However, its use is often hampered by the occurrence of drug resistance [
10‐
12]. Urgently needed to resolve the problem is to explore the mechanisms of resistance on sorafenib and seek an effective systemic therapy for patients after failure of sorafenib treatment.
FGF19 is a metabolic regulator gene belonging to the hormone-like FGF family of signal molecules, and has activity as an ileum-derived postprandial hormone [
13,
14]. Genomic and functional analyses show that FGF19 acts as an oncogenic driver in HCC [
15‐
17]. FGFR4 is the predominant FGFR isoform in FGFRs in human hepatocytes and both FGF19 and FGFR4 are highly expressed in primary HCC [
18]. FGF19 has unique specificity for FGFR4 [
19], and through binding to it, FGF19 activates different intracellular pathways, including GSK3β/β-catenin/E-cadherin signaling [
20]. Emerging studies indicate a focal, high-level amplification frequency of FGF19 in HCC clinical samples, which is positively correlated with tumor size, pathological stage and poor prognosis [
15,
21‐
23]. Recently, HCC responder cases to sorafenib were collected to explore the association between the efficacy of sorafenib and gene alterations [
24]. Using next generation sequencing and copy number assay, an FGF19 copy number gain was detected more frequently among complete response cases than among non-complete response cases, suggesting FGF19 amplification may be a predictor of a response to sorafenib [
24]. Therefore, increased understanding of the clinical relevance of FGF19 may bring molecular insights into the pathogenesis and treatment of HCC.
In this work, we determined the importance of FGF19 in sorafenib-induced cell viability, apoptosis, and accumulation of mitochondrial reactive oxidative species (ROS). We also evaluated the role of FGF19 and FGF19/FGFR4 axis in sorafenib resistance, and determined the synergistic effect of sorafenib and FGFR inhibitor ponatinib on sorafenib-resistant HCC cells. Our data reveal that FGF19 is essential for sorafenib efficacy and resistance in the treatment of HCC. This study provides critical rationale to test the inhibition of FGF19 signaling in patients with sorafenib-resistant HCC.
Methods
Cell lines, reagents and standard assays
HCC cell lines (MHCC97L, MHCC97H, HepG2, and SMMC7721) were directly obtained from American Type Culture Collection (ATCC, Rockville, MD). Sorafenib and ponatinib were purchased from Selleckchem (Houston, TX, USA). Superoxide dismutase (SOD), DMSO and DAPI were purchased from Sigma-Aldrich (St. Louis, MO). Standard cell culture, transient transfections, lentiviral transduction, quantitative RT-PCR (qRT-PCR), western blot, and cell viability assays were carried out as described previously [
20].
Antibodies and constructs
Antibodies raised against FGF19 and FGFR4 were purchased from Abcam (Cambridge, MA), β-actin was from Sigma-Aldrich (St Louis, MO), and cleaved PAPR (c-PARP) was from Cell Signaling (Beverly, MA). The full-length of human FGF19 and FGFR4 cDNA were cloned into pcDNA3.1(+) expression vector (Life technologies, Carlsbad, CA). Lentiviral vectors harboring shRNAs targeting FGF19 were obtained from GeneCopoeia (Rockville, MD). LentiCRISPR v2 vector used for generating CRISPR-Cas9 targeted deletion of FGFR4 was obtained from Feng Zhang (Addgene plasmid #52961). All the plasmids used in this study were verified by sequencing.
Development of sorafenib resistant cells
To generate sorafenib-resistant cells, cells were treated with LC50 of sorafenib and the concentration was gradually increased by 10% every 2 weeks until the maximum tolerated doses (10 μM) have been reached. Sorafenib-resistant cells were continuously cultured in the presence of 1 μM of sorafenib.
Electrochemical detection of O2•-
Electrochemical detection of superoxide (O
2
•-
) released from cells was established as previously described [
25]. In brief, 5 × 10
5 cells were incubated with sorafenib or/and other regents as indicated. A cyclic voltammetry (CV) was used to monitor cellular O
2
•- generation on CHI760E electrochemical station (ChenHua Instruments, Wuhan, China). SOD was added to the medium to verify the current changes was caused by O
2
•-. The electrochemical sensors were calibrated at different concentrations of O
2
•- in a fluidic chamber, and percentages of peak (potential = 0.7 V; current enhancement) were compared and calculated against the control curve and evaluated the release of the analysts.
Fluorescence analysis of intracellular oxidative stress
To further validate the generation of O2
•-, intracellular ROS were also determined by the oxidant-sensing fluorescent probe 2′,7′-dichlorodihydrofluorescein diacetate (DCFH-DA, Sigma-Aldrich). Briefly, cells were incubated with 10 μM of DCFH-DA for 20 min at 37 °C, after which they were washed, trypsinized, resuspended and immediately analyzed for fluorescence intensity under a fluorescence microscope (IX-71, Olympus Corp., Tokyo, Japan). Median fluorescence intensity was quantified by the NIH ImageJ software.
Determination of apoptotic bodies by DAPI nuclear staining
The presence of apoptotic bodies and nuclei morphology were determined by DAPI staining. Briefly, cells were fixed in 4% paraformaldehyde-PBS solution for 10 min and were stained with DAPI (300 nM) for 30 min at room temperature. Cells were examined for apoptotic bodies and nuclear morphology and photographed under fluorescence microscopy. Apoptotic cells were recognized and determined based on characteristic observations including the presence of fragmented, condensed, and degraded nuclei.
Statistical analysis
The data were presented as means ± SD from three or more independent experiments and were analyzed by the Student’s t-test at a significance level of P < 0.05.
Discussion
HCC is increasing in incidence with high fatality rate, and new therapies are urgently required to treat this disease. As first-line systemic therapy exists for patients with advanced HCC, sorafenib prolonged median survival and the time to progression of patients nearly 3 months [
29,
30]. By dually targeting MAPK signaling and the activation of RTKs, sorafenib inhibits cell proliferation and induces cell apoptosis in HCC. However, the addiction switches and compensatory pathways are activated simultaneously or sequentially in the treatment of sorafenib, which may due to high molecular heterogeneity in HCC [
31,
32]. Therefore, seeking novel anti-cancer agents or evaluating sorafenib in combination with other molecular targeted treatment is largely needed. A recent clinical report demonstrate that a copy number gain of FGF19 in HCC may represent a predictive biomarker for primary resistance to sorafenib [
24]. In the present work, we provide new insights into the molecular basis of sorafenib resistance with the FGF19 involvement, and indicate that therapeutic strategies such as combining sorafenib with ponatinib can act synergistically to overcome the acquired resistance to sorafenib and improve anti-cancer effects in HCC.
ROS-sensitive signaling pathways are persistently elevated in many cancer types, where they participate in cell growth/survival, oxidative damage and metabolism [
33,
34]. The half-period of free radical is only few seconds, therefore, detection of the short lifetime of free radicals particularly demands fast response of the analytical tool to the changes in concentration to obtain sufficient signal-to-noise ratios [
35]. Electrochemical biosensors have become promising candidates for in situ analysis of free radicals [
36]. We have successfully performed electrochemical biosensors to determine the intracellular oxidative balance in the PLX4032-treated melanoma cells [
25]. Here, we explore that electrochemical biosensors combined with conventional methods of ROS detection can be used for monitoring extracellular and intracellular levels of oxidation/reduction more precisely during drug treatment.
Disproportional increase in intracellular ROS can induce cancer cell apoptosis [
37], which can be achieved with sorafenib shown in this study, suggesting that sorafenib-induced high levels of ROS may turn on proapoptotic signaling. Recent studies indicate that FGF19/FGFR4 axis is a key signaling in certain forms of HCC [
38,
39]. Interestingly, either knockdown of FGF19 or FGFR4 or treated with ponatinib enhances ROS levels and apoptosis in sorafenib-resistant HCC cells. These observations indicate that FGF19/FGFR4 axis also contributes to HCC resistance to sorafenib.
In our previous work, we have provided evidence that FGF19 secreted from either HCC cells or tumor microenvironment can activate its specific receptor FGFR4 on the surface of HCC cells [
20]. We show here that the effects of sorafenib resistance can be overcome, at least partially, through blocking FGF19/FGFR4 signaling. Using the third-generation tyrosine-kinase inhibitor ponatinib, we found it was able to suppress almost all FGF19 activities through the inhibitory efficacy in FGFR4. We also show that in combination with the treatment of sorafenib, ponatinib plays a role in reversing the phenotypes induced by sorafenib resistance, such as reduced cell viability and enhanced cell apoptosis. These findings suggest the potential therapeutic effect of FGF19/FGFR4 blockade in patients with HCC, and demonstrate that the combination of ponatinib and sorafenib is more potent than either drug alone.
Knockdown of FGF19 leads to decreased cell proliferation, migration and invasion in HCC, which may also cause alternative signaling pathways that are either up- or down- regulated. Therefore, investigation of the overall gene expression profiles after FGF19 depletion will give us insight into the precise mechanism of FGF19-associated sorafenib resistance. Although our data are limited to in vitro characterization of HCC cells and will require further validation in animal models and clinical studies, this work provides a rational basis for FGF19/FGFR4 axis for the treatment of sorafenib-resistant HCC, and suggests that inhibition of FGF19/FGFR4 signaling may represent an attractive strategy for overcoming sorafenib resistance in HCC.
Conclusions
In summary, this work demonstrates that elevated FGF19 expression or hyperactivation of FGF19/FGFR4 signaling in HCC cells is one of the main mechanisms of sorafenib resistance, and blocking FGF19/FGFR4 axis by ponatinib can overcome the resistance of HCC cells to sorafenib through enhancing ROS-associated apoptosis. Our studies provide the basis for developing a novel molecularly targeted therapeutics to prevent single drug resistance. In future work, we will collect the tumor samples from patients with sorafenib-sensitive or resistant HCC to explore clinical importance of the FGF19/FGFR4 axis.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank Dr. Huakan Zhao, Southwest Hospital in China, for the excellent technical assistance.
Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (
http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.