PDGF beta targeting in cervical cancer cells suggest a fine-tuning of compensatory signalling pathways to sustain tumourigenic stimulation

Abstract The platelet-derived growth factor (PDGF) signalling pathway has been reported to play an important role in human cancers by modulating autocrine and paracrine processes such as tumour growth, metastasis and angiogenesis. Several clinical trials document the benefits of targeting this pathway; however, in cervical cancer the role of PDGF signalling in still unclear. In this study, we used siRNA against PDGF beta (PDGFBB) to investigate the cellular and molecular mechanisms of PDGFBB signalling in Ca Ski and HeLa cervical cancer cells. Our results show that PDGFBB inhibition in Ca Ski cells led to rapid alterations of the transcriptional pattern of 579 genes, genes that are known to have antagonistic roles in regulating tumour progression. Concomitantly, with the lack of significant effects on cervical cancer cells proliferation, apoptosis, migration or invasion, these findings suggests that cervical cancer cells shift between compensatory signalling pathways to maintain their behaviour. The observed autocrine effects were limited to cervical cancer cells ability to adhere to an endothelial cell (EC) monolayer. However, by inhibiting PDGFBB on cervical cells, we achieved reduced proliferation of ECs in co-culture settings and cellular aggregation in conditioned media. Because of lack of PDGF receptor expression on ECs, we believe that these effects are a result of indirect PDGFBB paracrine signalling mechanisms. Our results shed some light into the understanding of PDGFBB signalling mechanism in cervical cancer cells, which could be further exploited for the development of synergistic anti-tumour and anti-angiogenic therapeutic strategies

Methods to follow intracellular trafficking of cell-penetrating peptides

Cell-penetrating peptides (CPPs) are efficient vehicles to transport bioactive molecules into the cells. Despite numerous studies the exact mechanism by which CPPs facilitate delivery of cargo to its intracellular target is still debated. The current work presents methods that can be used for tracking CPP/pDNA complexes through endosomal transport and show the role of endosomal transport in the delivery of cargo. Separation of endosomal vesicles by differential centrifugation enables to pinpoint the localization of delivered cargo without labeling it and gives important quantitative information about pDNA trafficing in certain endosomal compartments. Single particle tracking (SPT) allows following individual CPP/cargo complex through endosomal path in live cells, using fluoresently labled cargo and green fluoresent protein expressing cells. These two different methods show similar results about tested NickFect/pDNA complexes intracellular trafficing. NF51 facilitates rapid internalization of complexes into the cells, prolongs their stay in early endosomes and promotes release to cytosol. NF1 is less capable to induce endosomal release and higher amount of complexes are routed to lysosomes for degradation. Our findings offer potential delivery vector for in vivo applications, NF51, where endosomal entrapment has been allayed. Furthermore, these methods are valuable tools to study other CPP-based delivery systems

Secondary structure of cell-penetrating peptides controls membrane interaction and insertion.

International audienceThe clinical use of efficient therapeutic agents is often limited by the poor permeability of the biological membranes. In order to enhance their cell delivery, short amphipathic peptides called cell-penetrating peptides (CPPs) have been intensively developed for the last two decades. CPPs are based either on protein transduction domains, model peptide or chimeric constructs and have been used to deliver cargoes into cells through either covalent or non-covalent strategies. Although several parameters are simultaneously involved in their internalization mechanism, recent focuses on CPPs suggested that structural properties and interactions with membrane phospholipids could play a major role in the cellular uptake mechanism. In the present work, we report a comparative analysis of the structural plasticity of 10 well-known CPPs as well as their ability to interact with phospholipid membranes. We propose a new classification of CPPs based on their structural properties, affinity for phospholipids and internalization pathways already reported in the literature

Dendritic Glutamate Receptor mRNAs Show Contingent Local Hotspot-Dependent Translational Dynamics

Protein synthesis in neuronal dendrites underlies long-term memory formation in the brain. Local translation of reporter mRNAs has demonstrated translation in dendrites at focal points called translational hotspots. Various reports have shown that hundreds to thousands of mRNAs are localized to dendrites, yet the dynamics of translation of multiple dendritic mRNAs has remained elusive. Here, we show that the protein translational activities of two dendritically localized mRNAs are spatiotemporally complex but constrained by the translational hotspots in which they are colocalized. Cotransfection of glutamate receptor 2 (GluR2) and GluR4 mRNAs (engineered to encode different fluorescent proteins) into rat hippocampal neurons demonstrates a heterogeneous distribution of translational hotspots for the two mRNAs along dendrites. Stimulation with s-3,5-dihydroxy-phenylglycine modifies the translational dynamics of both of these RNAs in a complex saturable manner. These results suggest that the translational hotspot is a primary structural regulator of the simultaneous yet differential translation of multiple mRNAs in the neuronal dendrite

In: Rolka, R., Rekowski, P. & Siberring, J. (Eds.), Peptides 2006 : Proceedings of the Twenty-Ninth European Peptide Symposium, Gdansk, Poland, 3 - 8 Sept. 2006, No. 0212

INTRODUCTION: Many cell-penetrating peptides (CPP) have been utilised as biologically inert vectors. A majority of these studies employ sychnologically organised constructs in which a bioactive cargo (message) is chemically conjugated to the CPP (address). Previously, we have adopted a sychnologic strategy to modulate intracellular signal transduction. Using chimeric constructs composed of the CPP transportan 10, conjugated to partial sequences that correspond to functional domains of signal transduction proteins, we have selectively modulated a variety of cellular activities including secretion and activation of p42/p44 mitogen-activated protein kinases [1, 2]. However, a QSAR-based algorithm can now be used to predict CPP that reside within the primary sequences of proteins [3]. We have adapted this strategy to identify CPP within signal transducing proteins including functional domains that govern protein-protein interactions. Data presented herein indicate that it is now feasible to identify rhegnylogic sequences, containing vectoral-independent discontinuously organised pharmacophores, that are cell penetrant modulators of signal transduction pathways