Neuroblastoma Cell Death is Induced by Inorganic Arsenic Trioxide (As2O3) and Inhibited by a Normal Human Bone Marrow Cell-Derived Factor

Three phenotypically distinct cell types are present in human neuroblastomas (NB) and NB cell lines: I-type stem cells, N-type neuroblastic precursors, and S-type Schwannian/melanoblastic precursors. The stimulation of human N-type neuroblastoma cell proliferation by normal human bone marrow monocytic cell conditioned medium (BMCM) has been demonstrated in vitro, a finding consistent with the high frequency of bone marrow (BM) metastases in patients with advanced NB. Inorganic arsenic trioxide (As2O3), already clinically approved for the treatment of several hematological malignancies, is currently under investigation for NB. Recent studies show that As2O3 induces apoptosis in NB cells. We examined the impact of BMCM on growth and survival of As2O3-treated NB cell lines, to evaluate the response of cultured NB cell variants to regulatory agents. We studied the effect of BMCM on survival and clonogenic growth of eleven As2O3-treated NB cell lines grown in sparsely seeded, non-adherent, semi-solid cultures. As2O3 had a strong inhibitory effect on survival of all tested NB cell lines. BMCM augmented cell growth and survival and reversed the inhibitory action of As2O3 in all tested cell lines, but most strongly in N-type cells. While As2O3 effectively reduced survival of all tested NB cell lines, BMCM effectively impacted its inhibitory action. Better understanding of micro-environmental regulators affecting human NB tumor cell growth and survival may be seminal to the development of therapeutic strategies and clinically effective agents for this condition

Candidate target genes for loss of heterozygosity on human chromosome 17q21

Loss of heterozygosity (LOH) on chromosome 17q21 has been detected in 30% of primary human breast tumours. The smallest common region deleted occurred in an interval between the D17S746 and D17S846 polymorphic sequences tagged sites that are located on two recombinant PI-bacteriophage clones of chromosome 17q21: 122F4 and 50H1, respectively. To identify the target gene for LOH, we defined a map of this chromosomal region. We found the following genes: JUP, FK506BP10, SC65, Gastrin (GAS) and HAP1. Of the genes that have been identified in this study, only JUP is located between D17S746 and D17S846. This was of interest since earlier studies have shown that JUP expression is altered in breast, lung and thyroid tumours as well as cell lines having LOH in chromosome 17q21. However, no mutations were detected in JUP using single-strand conformation polymorphism analysis of primary breast tumour DNAs having LOH at 17q21. We could find no evidence that the transcription promoter for JUP is methylated in tumour DNAs having LOH at 17q21. We suspect that the target gene for LOH in primary human breast tumours on chromosome 17q21 is either JUP and results in a haploinsufficiency for expression or may be an unidentified gene located in the interval between D17S846 and JUP. © 2004 Cancer Research UK

Restoration of plakoglobin expression in bladder carcinoma cell lines suppresses cell migration and tumorigenic potential

The reduction or loss of plakoglobin expression in late-stage bladder cancer has been correlated with poor survival where upregulation of this catenin member by histone deacetylase inhibitors has been shown to accompany tumour suppression in an in vivo model. In this study, we directly addressed the question of the role of plakoglobin in bladder tumorigenesis following restoration, or knockdown of expression in bladder carcinoma cell lines. Restoration of plakoglobin expression resulted in a reduction in migration and suppression of tumorigenic potential in vivo. Immunocytochemistry revealed cytoplasmic and membranous localisation of plakoglobin in transfectants with <1% of cells displaying detectable nuclear localisation of plakoglobin. siRNA knockdown experiments targeting plakoglobin, revealed enhanced migration in all cell lines in the presence and absence of E-cadherin expression. In bladder cell lines expressing low levels of plakoglobin and desmoglein-2, elevated levels of desmoglein-2 were detected following restoration of plakoglobin expression in transfected cell lines. Analysis of wnt signalling revealed no activation event associated with plakoglobin expression in the bladder model. These results show that plakoglobin acts as a tumour suppressor gene in bladder carcinoma cells and the silencing of plakoglobin gene expression in late-stage bladder cancer is a primary event in tumour progression

Excess beta-catenin promotes accumulation of transcriptionally active p53.

beta-catenin is a multifunctional protein, acting both as a structural component of the cell adhesion machinery and as a transducer of extracellular signals. Deregulated beta-catenin protein expression, due to mutations in the beta-catenin gene itself or in its upstream regulator, the adenomatous polyposis coli (APC) gene, is prevalent in colorectal cancer and in several other tumor types, and attests to the potential oncogenic activity of this protein. Increased expression of beta-catenin is an early event in colorectal carcinogenesis, and is usually followed by a later mutational inactivation of the p53 tumor suppressor. To examine whether these two key steps in carcinogenesis are interrelated, we studied the effect of excess beta-catenin on p53. We report here that overexpression of beta-catenin results in accumulation of p53, apparently through interference with its proteolytic degradation. This effect involves both Mdm2-dependent and -independent p53 degradation pathways, and is accompanied by augmented transcriptional activity of p53 in the affected cells. Increased p53 activity may provide a safeguard against oncogenic deregulation of beta-catenin, and thus impose a pressure for mutational inactivation of p53 during the later stages of tumor progression