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Targeting Epithelial-Mesenchymal Transition for Identification of Inhibitors for Pancreatic Cancer Cell Invasion and Tumor Spheres Formation
Polireddy, Kishore Dong, Ruochen McDonald, Peter R. Wang, Tao Luke, Brendan Chen, Ping Broward, Melinda Roy, Anuradha Chen, Qi
Polireddy, Kishore
Dong, Ruochen
McDonald, Peter R.
Wang, Tao
Luke, Brendan
Chen, Ping
Broward, Melinda
Roy, Anuradha
Chen, Qi
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Abstract
Background
Pancreatic cancer has an enrichment of stem-like cancer cells (CSCs) that contribute to chemoresistant tumors prone to metastasis and recurrence. Drug screening assays based on cytotoxicity cannot identify specific CSC inhibitors, because CSCs comprise only a small portion of cancer cell population, and it is difficult to propagate stable CSC populations in vitro for high-throughput screening (HTS) assays. Based on the important role of cancer cell epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT) in promoting CSCs, we hypothesized that inhibition of EMT can be a useful strategy for inhibiting CSCs, and therefore a feasible approach for HTS can be built for identification of CSC inhibitors, based on assays detecting EMT inhibition.
Methods
An immunofluorescent assay was established and optimized for HTS to identify compounds that enhance E-cadherin expression, as a hallmark of inhibition of EMT. Four chemical libraries containing 41,472 compounds were screened in PANC-1 pancreatic cancer cell line. Positive hits were validated for EMT and CSC inhibition in vitro using sphere formation assay, western blotting, immune fluorescence, and scratch assay.
Results
Initial hits were refined to 73 compounds with a secondary screening, among which 17 exhibited concentration dependent induction of E-cadherin expression. Six compounds were selected for further study which belonged to 2 different chemical structural clusters. A novel compound 1-(benzylsulfonyl) indoline (BSI, Compound #38) significantly inhibited pancreatic cancer cell migration and invasion. BSI inhibited histone deacetylase, increased histone 4 acetylation preferably, resulting in E-cadherin up-regulation. BSI effectively inhibited tumor spheres formation. Six more analogues of BSI were tested for anti-migration and anti-CSC activities.
Conclusion
This study demonstrated a feasible approach for discovery of agents targeting EMT and CSCs using HTS, and identified a class of novel chemicals that could be developed as anti-EMT and anti-CSC drug leads.
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2016-10-20
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Public Library of Science
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Targeting Epithelial-Mesenchymal Transition for Identification of Inhibitors for Pancreatic Cancer Cell Invasion and Tumor Spheres Formation
Kishore Polireddy, Ruochen Dong, Peter R. McDonald, Tao Wang, Brendan Luke, Ping Chen, Melinda Broward, Anuradha Roy, Qi Chen
PLoS One. 2016; 11(10): e0164811. Published online 2016 Oct 20. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0164811