The significance of soils and soil science towards realization of the United Nations sustainable development goals

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Efflux pump inhibitors (EPIs) as new antimicrobial agents against Pseudomonas aeruginosa

Pseudomonas aeruginosa is an opportunistic human pathogen and one of the leading causes of nosocomial infections worldwide. The difficulty in treatment of pseudomonas infections arises from being multidrug resistant (MDR) and exhibits resistance to most antimicrobial agents due to the expression of different mechanisms overcoming their effects. Of these resistance mechanisms, the active efflux pumps in Pseudomonas aeruginosa that belong to the resistance nodulation division (RND) plays a very important role in extruding the antibiotics outside the bacterial cells providing a protective means against their antibacterial activity. Beside its role against the antimicrobial agents, these pumps can extrude biocides, detergents, and other metabolic inhibitors. It is clear that efflux pumps can be targets for new antimicrobial agents. Peptidomimetic compounds such as phenylalanine arginyl β-naphthylamide (PAβN) have been introduced as efflux pump inhibitors (EPIs); their mechanism of action is through competitive inhibition with antibiotics on the efflux pump resulting in increased intracellular concentration of antibiotic, hence, restoring its antibacterial activity. The advantage of EPIs is the difficulty to develop bacterial resistance against them, but the disadvantage is their toxic property hindering their clinical application. The structure activity relationship of these compounds showed other derivatives from PAβN that are higher in their activity with higher solubility in biological fluids and decreased toxicity level. This raises further questions on how can we compact Pseudomonas infections. Of particular importance, the recent resurgence in the use of older antibiotics such as polymyxins and probably applying stricter control measures in order to prevent their spread in clinical sittings

Lysophosphatidic Acid Induces MDA-MB-231 Breast Cancer Cells Migration through Activation of PI3K/PAK1/ERK Signaling

Enhanced motility of cancer cells is a critical step in promoting tumor metastasis. Lysophosphatidic acid (LPA), representing the major mitogenic activity in serum, stimulates migration in various types of cancer cells. However, the underlying signaling mechanisms for LPA-induced motility of cancer cells remain to be elucidated.In this study, we found that LPA dose-dependently stimulated migration of MDA-MB-231 breast cancer cells, with 10 µM being the most effective. LPA also increased ERK activity and the MEK inhibitor U0126 could block LPA-induced ERK activity and cell migration. In addition, LPA induced PAK1 activation while ERK activation and cell migration were inhibited by ectopic expression of an inactive mutant form of PAK1 in MDA-MB-231 cells. Furthermore, LPA increased PI3K activity, and the PI3K inhibitor LY294002 inhibited both LPA-induced PAK1/ERK activation and cell migration. Moreover, in the breast cancer cell, LPA treatment resulted in remarkable production of reactive oxygen species (ROS), while LPA-induced ROS generation, PI3K/PAK1/ERK activation and cell migration could be inhibited by N-acetyl-L-Cysteine, a scavenger of ROS.Taken together, this study identifies a PI3K/PAK1/ERK signaling pathway for LPA-stimulated breast cancer cell migration. These data also suggest that ROS generation plays an essential role in the activation of LPA-stimulated PI3K/PAK1/ERK signaling and breast cancer cell migration. These findings may provide a basis for designing future therapeutic strategy for blocking breast cancer metastasis

Identification of heparin-binding EGF-like growth factor (HB-EGF) as a biomarker for lysophosphatidic acid receptor type 1 (LPA1) activation in human breast and prostate cancers

Lysophosphatidic acid (LPA) is a natural bioactive lipid with growth factor-like functions due to activation of a series of six G protein-coupled receptors (LPA₁₋₆). LPA receptor type 1 (LPA₁) signaling influences the pathophysiology of many diseases including cancer, obesity, rheumatoid arthritis, as well as lung, liver and kidney fibrosis. Therefore, LPA₁ is an attractive therapeutic target. However, most mammalian cells co-express multiple LPA receptors whose co-activation impairs the validation of target inhibition in patients because of missing LPA receptor-specific biomarkers. LPA₁ is known to induce IL-6 and IL-8 secretion, as also do LPA₂ and LPA₃. In this work, we first determined the LPA induced early-gene expression profile in three unrelated human cancer cell lines expressing different patterns of LPA receptors (PC3: LPA₁,₂,₆; MDA-MB-231: LPA1,2; MCF-7: LPA₂,₆). Among the set of genes upregulated by LPA only in LPA₁-expressing cells, we validated by QPCR and ELISA that upregulation of heparin-binding EGF-like growth factor (HB-EGF) was inhibited by LPA₁-₃ antagonists (Ki16425, Debio0719). Upregulation and downregulation of HB-EGF mRNA was confirmed in vitro in human MDA-B02 breast cancer cells stably overexpressing LPA₁ (MDA-B02/LPA₁) and downregulated for LPA₁ (MDA-B02/shLPA1), respectively. At a clinical level, we quantified the expression of LPA₁ and HB-EGF by QPCR in primary tumors of a cohort of 234 breast cancer patients and found a significantly higher expression of HB-EGF in breast tumors expressing high levels of LPA₁. We also generated human xenograph prostate tumors in mice injected with PC3 cells and found that a five-day treatment with Ki16425 significantly decreased both HB-EGF mRNA expression at the primary tumor site and circulating human HB-EGF concentrations in serum. All together our results demonstrate that HB-EGF is a new and relevant biomarker with potentially high value in quantifying LPA₁ activation state in patients receiving anti-LPA₁ therapies