1. 'Verteporfin exhibits anti-proliferative activity in embryonal and alveolar rhabdomyosarcoma cell lines'
- Author
-
Sonia Vanina Forcales, Irene Marchesi, Sanna L, Luigi Bagella, Diego Francesco Calvisi, Valentina Bordoni, and Roberta Piredda
- Subjects
0301 basic medicine ,Poly (ADP-Ribose) Polymerase-1 ,Cell Cycle Proteins ,Toxicology ,medicine.disease_cause ,Proto-Oncogene Proteins c-myc ,03 medical and health sciences ,0302 clinical medicine ,Downregulation and upregulation ,Cell Line, Tumor ,medicine ,Humans ,Rhabdomyosarcoma, Embryonal ,Rhabdomyosarcoma ,Rhabdomyosarcoma, Alveolar ,Cell Proliferation ,Hippo signaling pathway ,Chemistry ,Cell growth ,Nuclear Proteins ,Verteporfin ,General Medicine ,Cell cycle ,medicine.disease ,G1 Phase Cell Cycle Checkpoints ,Cell biology ,030104 developmental biology ,030220 oncology & carcinogenesis ,Alveolar rhabdomyosarcoma ,Embryonal rhabdomyosarcoma ,Carcinogenesis ,Acyltransferases ,Transcription Factors - Abstract
Rhabdomyosarcoma (RMS) is a pediatric tumor, which arises from muscle precursor cells. Recently, it has been demonstrated that Hippo Pathway (Hpo), a pathway that regulates several physiological and biological features, is involved in RMS tumorigenesis. For instance, an upregulation of the Hpo downstream effector Yes-Associated Protein 1 (YAP) leads to the development of embryonal rhabdomyosarcoma (eRMS) in murine activated muscle satellite cells. On the other hand, the YAP paralog transcriptional co-activator with PDZ-binding motif (TAZ) is overexpressed in alveolar rhabdomyosarcoma (aRMS) patients with poor survival. YAP and TAZ exhibit both cytoplasmic and nuclear functions. In the nucleus, YAP binds TEADs (TEA domain family members) factors and together they constitute a complex that is able either to activate the transcription of several genes such as MYC, Tbx5 and PAX8 or to maintain the stability of others like p73. Due to the key role of YAP and TAZ in cancer, the identification and/or development of new compounds able to block their activity might be an effective antineoplastic strategy. Verteporfin (VP) is a molecule able to stop the formation of YAP/TEAD complex in the nucleus. The aim of this study is to evaluate the action of VP on RMS cell lines. This work shows that VP has an anti-proliferative activity on all RMS cell lines analyzed. Depending on RMS cell lines, VP affects cell cycle differently. Moreover, VP is able to decrease YAP protein levels, and to induce the activation of apoptosis mechanism through the cleavage of PARP-1. In addition, Annexin V assay showed the activation of apoptosis and necrosis after VP treatment. In summary, the ability of VP to disrupt RMS cell proliferation could be a novel and valuable strategy to improve the therapeutic approaches in treating rhabdomyosarcoma.
- Published
- 2019