Background
Toll-like receptor 3 (TLR3) is the critical sensor of the innate immune system that serves to identify viral double-stranded RNA (dsRNA). TLR3 was reported to be expressed on immune cells and some certain noninmmune cells, such as keratinocytes [
1] or endothelial cells [
2]. TLR3 agonist polyinosinic-polycytidilic acid (poly I:C) represents either genomic or life cycle intermediate material of many viruses, and activates the immune cells through binding both to the dsRNA-dependent protein kinase (PKR) and TLR3. Double-stranded RNA has been proved to induce apoptosis in several cell types through multiple pathways. For instance, dsRNA-transfected pancreatic β-cells manifests PKR- and caspase-dependent apoptosis [
3,
4], whereas endothelial cell apoptosis triggered by exogenous dsRNA is mostly dependent on the extrinsic caspase pathway [
5,
6]. As involvement of Toll/IL-1R domain-containing adapter inducing IFN-β (TRIF) in apoptosis has recently been suggested [
7,
8], TLR3 signaling pathway is found to not only participate in limiting virus replication but also cause infected cells to undergo apoptosis, which is another way of protecting the host against microbe spreading [
9].
With the aim of inducing an IFN-mediated anticancer immune response, both poly I:C and poly A:U have been used with moderate success as adjuvant therapy in clinical trials for different types of cancer [
10,
11]. Recently, Bruno and his colleagues reported that TLR3 was expressed in several breast cancer cell lines and could directly drive those cells to apoptosis [
12]. Here, we extensively analyzed the expression and proapoptotic activity of TLR3 in a variety of human and murine tumor cells, and further confirmed that TLR3 are widely expressed on human and murine tumor cells. We then found that activation of TLR3 signaling in cancerous cells by poly I:C made human and murine cancer cells become sensitive to protein synthesis inhibitor cycloheximide (CHX)-induced apoptosis, and blockade of TLR3 recognition with anti-TLR3 antibody greatly attenuated the apoptosis-improving effects of poly I:C on tumor cells.
Methods
Cell Lines and Reagents
The human tumor cell lines Hela (cervical cancer), A549 (small cell lung carcinoma), Hep2 (laryngeal carcinoma), HepG2 (hepatoma), HO8910 (ovarian epithelial carcinoma), and the murine cell lines B16 (melanoma), RM1 (prostate cancer), LLC (lung cancer), MCA38 (colon cancer), Hepa1-6 (hepatocellular carcinoma) were obtained from American Type Culture Collection (ATCC, Rockville, MD, U.S.A.). Polyinosinic-polycytidilic acid (poly I:C) and cycloheximide (CHX) was purchased from Sigma-Aldrich Co. Ltd (St. Louis, MO, USA).
Cell Cultures
Tumor cells were maintained in 2 ml RPMI 1640 plus 10% (v/v) heat-inactivated fetal bovine serum (FCS, GIBCO, Grand Island, NY) in 6-well plates (Costar, Austria) at 2 × 105 cells/well. All of the media were supplemented with 2 mML-glutamine, 100 units/ml penicillin G, 100 units/ml streptomycin. Cells were maintained at 37°C in a humidified incubator containing 5% CO2. Poly I:C was used at the concentrations indicated. CHX was added to the media at the concentration of 1.5 μg/ml.
RT-PCR Analysis
Total RNA was isolated from tumor cells using TRIzol reagent according to manufacture's guide (Invitrogen, Carlsbad, CA). Cellular RNA (1 μg) was reversedly transcribed into cDNA in a reaction mixture containing 5 mM MgCl2, 1 mM dNTP, 2.5 μM oligo (dT) primer, 1U RNase inhibitor, and 2.5U reverse transcriptase (Invitrogen). After incubation at 37°C for 50 min, the reaction was terminated by heating at 70°C for 15 min. PCR primers for detecting mRNA for TLR3 and β-actin were synthesized by Sangon Ltd, Shanghai, China. Primer sequences were as follows: human β-actin, sense, 5'-GTG GGG CGC CCC AGG CAC CA-3', antisense 5'-CTC CTT AAT GTC ACG CAC GAT TT-3'; human TLR3, sense, 5'-AAC GAT TCC TTT GCT TGG CTT C-3', antisense 5'-GCT TAG ATC CAG AAT GGT CAA G-3'; mouse β-actin, sense, 5'- ATG GAT GAC GAT ATC GCT -3', antisense, 5'- ATG AGG TAG TCT GTC AGG T -3'; mouse TLR3, sense, 5'-AAG AGG GCG GAA AGG TG-3', antisense, 5'-GAA GCG AGC ATT TAC TA-3'. The PCR reaction buffer (25 μl), consisting of 2 mM MgCl2, 0.5 μM of each primer, and 1U Ampli Taq DNA polymerase, was added to an amplification tube. PCR was run for 35 cycles. Each cycle consisted of 95°C for l min, 55°C for l min, and 72°C for l min.
Flow Cytometric Analysis
To detect cell surface expression, cultured human tumor cells were stained with purified anti-human TLR3 antibody (eBioscience, San Diego, CA) or purified Mouse IgG1 control (eBioscience), followed by FITC-conjugated rat anti-mouse IgG1 mAb (clone A85-1, BD PharMingen, San Diego, CA). The Murine tumor cells were stained with rat serum anti-mouse TLR3 (eBioscience) or purified rat IgG isotype control (eBioscience), followed by FITC-conjugated F(ab')2 goat anti-rat IgG (Caltag Laboratories, South San Francisco, CA). To analyze intracytoplasmic TLR3 expression, tumor cells were prefixed and permeabilized. The following staining treatments were the same as above. Finally, stained cells were analyzed by using a flow cytometer (FACScalibur, Becton Dickinson, Franklin Lakes, NJ, USA), and the data were processed with WINMDI2.9 software.
Cell Viability Analysis
Cell viability was determined by Cell-titer 96 aqueous one solution cell proliferation assay kit (Promega, Madison, WI, USA). The process of the experiment is completely according to the instruction. Briefly, aliquots of 1 × 103 cells/well were cultured in 96-well plates (Costar, Austria) with or without Poly I:C/CHX for 72 h. Poly I:C was used at the concentrations of 100 μg/ml. CHX was added at the concentrations of 1.5 μg/ml. 40 μl of Cell-titer 96 aqueous one solution were added to each well and incubated for an additional 3 h. The absorbance at 490 nm was recorded with a 96-well plate reader. Each experiment was performed in triplicate and repeated at least three times.
Apoptosis Assays
2 × 105 tumor cells were washed twice with cold PBS, followed by being resuspended in 100 binding buffer (10 mM HEPES-NaOH, pH 7.4, 140 mM NaCl, 2.5 mM CaCl2) and then incubated with 4 μl FITC-conjugated annexin-V and 5 μl Propidium iodide (PI) from BD PharMingen (San Diego, CA) in dark for 20 min at room temperature. Samples were immediately analyzed with flow cytometry. The stained cells were also analyzed by a FACScalibur flow cytometer (Becton Dickinson).
Western Blot Analysis
Hela cells and MCA38 cells were stimulated with poly I:C/CHX for 3 hours, 6 hours, 9 hours or 12 hours respectively. Cellular extracts were prepared as described [
13]. Protein samples were mixed in Laemmli loading buffer, boiled for 5 min, and then subjected to 14% SDS-PAGE. After electrophoresis, proteins were transferred onto PVDF membrane (Millipore, Billerica, MA). The blots were incubated with rabbit anti-mouse or human IFN-β polyclonal antibody (PBL Biomedical Laboratories) overnight at 4°C. Membranes were washed with 0.05% (vol/vol) Tween 20 in PBS (pH 7.6) and incubated with a 1:3000 dilution of Horseradish peroxidase (HRP) linked anti-rabbit IgG secondary antibody (Promega) for 60 min at room temperature. Protein bands were visualized by ECL substrate (Pierce).
TLR3 Blockade and IFN-β Neutralization Assay
Hela cells and MCA38 cells were maintained in 12-well plates (Costar, Austria) at 1 × 105 cells/well. In TLR3 Blockade assay, Hela cells were treated with the purified anti-human TLR3 antibody (eBioscience) at the concentration of 10 μg/ml for 4 hours before being stimulated with poly I:C/CHX. The treatment of MCA38 cells is identical to Hela cells except for the rat serum anti-mouse TLR3 antibody (eBioscience) we used. In IFN-β Neutralization assay, Hela cells or MCA38 cells were treated with anti-human IFN-β antibody (PBL Biomedical Laboratories) or anti-mouse IFN-β antibody (PBL Biomedical Laboratories) at the concentration of 1 × 104 U/ml for 4 hours before being stimulated with poly I:C/CHX.
Statistical Analysis
Data are expressed as the means ± SD with n = 3. Statistical significances were determined with use of the unpaired Student's t test (P values < 0.05). All data from cell culture experiments are on the basis of at least three individual cell preparations.
Discussion
TLR3 was thought to be mainly expressed in immune cells, keratinocytes and some endothelial cells. Recently, it has been reported that certain human tumor cells also express this receptor [
12,
16]. Our work shows that TLR3 is widely expressed in human and murine tumor cells lines from different origin though at different levels, suggesting that TLR3 activation may play important functions in tumor biology.
Ligation of TLR3 and its ligand dsRNA triggers well-characterized signaling cascades that result in activation of downstream effectors, such as NF-κB, p38, JNK, and IFN regulatory factors (IRFs) 4 [
17]. Many of these signaling elements are also involved in tumor growth and apoptosis, implying that TLR3 expressed in tumor cells may also affect tumor viability. In the present study, we investigated the response of tumor cell lines from different origin in vitro to the stimulation with TLR3 agonist poly I:C and the tumor chemotherapeutic drug CHX. We found that incubating tumor cells with CHX alone in the used dosage or poly I:C alone showed no significant effects on cancer cell viability. However, incubation of human Hela cells or murine MCA38 cells with CHX plus poly I:C caused dramatically apoptosis of these cells in a poly I:C dose-dependent manner via TLR3 pathway, which is confirmed by our TLR3 blockade assay. Several studies have reported that molecular events involved in cell death induced by TLR3 agonists include the production of IFN-β[
14,
15] required for apoptosis. In our study, we also found that IFN-β production of tumor cells could be induced by poly I:C/CHX stimulation, which might function as a proapoptotic agent by up-regulating the expression of proteins directly involved in cell death, including caspases [
18], TRAIL [
19,
20], and p53 [
21] as reported. On the other hand, partly reduction of poly I:C/CHX -induced apoptosis in the neutralization assay of IFN-β suggested other pathway involved. Thus roles of proteins such as TBK1 and RIP1, which all participate in TLR3 signaling [
22] will require additional studies. Since Salaun has recently proved that in contrasts with its survival role after TLR2 [
23]and TLR4 [
24] triggering, NF-κB appears to be necessary for TLR3-mediated apoptosis [
12], it would be interesting to investigate how NF-κB links TLR3 triggering and CHX stimulating to apoptosis pathway.
Besides TLR3, PKR, the cytoplasmic helicase family proteins (retinoic acid-inducible gene I (RIG-I) and melanoma differentiation-associated gene 5 (MDA5)) also serve as dsRNA pattern-recognition receptors [
1,
25], which are reported to trigger different signaling pathways from TLR3 [
26]. Although blockade of TLR3 markedly reduced apoptosis of tumor cells treated by poly I:C/CHX, we can not completely exclude the possibility that RIG-I/MDA5 contributed to the recognition of poly I:C internalized by endocytosis. Moreover, unpublished result of our study on the apoptosis in other tumor cell lines transfected with vector expressing poly I:C demonstrated the involvement of RIG-I/MDA5 pathway.
It is still largely unknown how CHX induces tumor cells cytotoxicity in the presence of poly I:C, although we figured out the production of IFN-β involved. Furthermore, there were still some cell lines we tested insensitive to poly I:C, CHX or both, which can be explained by defects in the cellular apoptotic machinery or low expression levels of TLR3.
Since both poly I:C and poly(A:U) have been used with moderate success as immune adjuvant therapy in clinical trials for different types of cancer [
27], including adenocarcinomas of the breast [
28], our findings may open a new range of the applications for TLR3 agonists as an adjuvant of cancer chemotherapy.
Acknowledgements
The authors thank Rongbin Zhou and Weici Zhang for technical assistance. This work was supported by Natural Science Foundation of China (#30630059, #30671901, #30570819, #30571695) and National 973 Basic Science Project (#2006CB504300, #2006CB806504, #2004CB518807, #2003CB515501)
Competing interests
The author(s) declare that they have no competing interests.
Authors' contributions
QJ carried out the experiments and drafted the primary manuscript. HW and ZT addressed the scientific question, designed the experiments, analyzed the data and finally wrote the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.