Molecular Inhibitor of QSOX1 Suppresses Tumor Growth in Vivo Amber L
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Author Manuscript Published OnlineFirst on October 1, 2019; DOI: 10.1158/1535-7163.MCT-19-0233 Author manuscripts have been peer reviewed and accepted for publication but have not yet been edited. Molecular Inhibitor of QSOX1 Suppresses Tumor Growth in vivo Amber L. Fifield1, Paul D. Hanavan2, Douglas O. Faigel3, Eduard Sergienko4, Andrey Bobkov4, Nathalie Meurice5, Joachim L. Petit5, Alysia Polito5, Thomas R. Caulfield6,7,8,9,10, Erik P. Castle11, John A. Copland12, Debabrata Mukhopadhyay13, Krishnendu Pal13, Shamit K. Dutta13, Huijun Luo14, Thai H. Ho14* and Douglas F. Lake1* *Co-corresponding authors 1School of Life Sciences, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA 2RenBio, Inc., New York, NY, USA 3Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Department of Internal Medicine, Mayo Clinic, Phoenix, AZ, USA 4Assay Development, Sanford Burnham Prebys Medial Discovery Institute, La Jolla, CA, USA 5Hematology/Oncology, Mayo Clinic, Scottsdale, AZ, USA 6Department of Neuroscience, Mayo Clinic, Jacksonville, FL 32224 USA 7Mayo Graduate School, Neurobiology of Disease, Mayo Clinic, Jacksonville, FL 32224 USA 8Department of Cancer Biology, Mayo Clinic, Jacksonville, FL 32224 USA 9Health Sciences Research, Division of Biomedical Statistics & Informatics, Mayo Clinic, Jacksonville, FL 32224 USA 10Center for Individualized Medicine, Mayo Clinic, Jacksonville, FL 32224 USA 11Department of Urology, Mayo Clinic, Phoenix, AZ, USA 12Department of Cancer Biology, Mayo Clinic, Jacksonville, FL, USA 13Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Mayo Clinic, Jacksonville, FL, USA 14Division of Hematology/Oncology, Mayo Clinic, Phoenix, AZ, USA Additional Information Contact Information: Thai H. Ho Mayo Clinic Arizona 5777 East Mayo Boulevard Phoenix, AZ 85054 Tel: 480-342-4800 Fax: 480-301-4675 Email: [email protected] Douglas F. Lake PO Box 874501 Tempe, AZ 85287-4501 Tel: 480-727-9579 Fax: 480-965-0098 Email: [email protected] 1 Downloaded from mct.aacrjournals.org on September 30, 2021. © 2019 American Association for Cancer Research. Author Manuscript Published OnlineFirst on October 1, 2019; DOI: 10.1158/1535-7163.MCT-19-0233 Author manuscripts have been peer reviewed and accepted for publication but have not yet been edited. Financial Support: This work was supported in part by the Gloria A. and Thomas J. Dutson Jr. Kidney Research Endowment. T.H. Ho is supported by National Cancer Institute (R01 CA224917) and the Department of Defense (W81XWH-17-1-0546). Opinions, interpretations, conclusions, and recommendations are those of the author and are not necessarily endorsed by the Department of Defense. The funding agencies had no role in the study design. Partially supported by grants to D.O. Faigel, E. Sergienko and D.F. Lake (R01 CA201226) and to D. Mukhopadhyay (R01 CA78383-20). Conflict of Interest: The authors declare no conflict of interest. Other Notes: This manuscript contains 5,669 words (exclusive of references) and six figures. Running Title: Molecular Inhibitor of QSOX1 Suppresses Tumor Growth Abstract Quiescin Sulfhydryl Oxidase 1 (QSOX1) is an enzyme overexpressed by many different tumor types. QSOX1 catalyzes the formation of disulfide bonds in proteins. Since short hairpin knockdowns of QSOX1 have been shown to suppress tumor growth and invasion in vitro and in vivo, we hypothesized that chemical compounds inhibiting QSOX1 enzymatic activity would also suppress tumor growth, invasion, and metastasis. High throughput screening using a QSOX1-based enzymatic assay revealed multiple potential QSOX1 inhibitors. One of the inhibitors, known as “SBI-183”, suppresses tumor cell growth in a Matrigel-based spheroid assay and inhibits invasion in a modified Boyden chamber, but does not affect viability of non- malignant cells. Oral administration of SBI-183 inhibits tumor growth in two independent human xenograft mouse models of renal cell carcinoma. We conclude that SBI-183 warrants further exploration as a useful tool for understanding QSOX1 biology and as a potential novel anticancer agent in tumors that overexpress QSOX1. Introduction Cancer is a leading cause of death worldwide and distant metastases are the major cause of patient mortality. Initially the primary tumor grows in its microenvironment which consists of tumor cells and non-malignant stroma, each secreting extracellular matrix (ECM) [1]. The constituents of tumor ECM are a critical factor for cancer invasion and metastasis [1] and many changes occur in the tumor microenvironment (TME) prior to physical migration of metastatic cells away from the primary tumor. These changes include upregulation of matrix metalloproteinases (MMP’s) [2], aberrant integrin signaling [3], and a loss of adherens junctions [3], [4]. Each step of the metastatic process is mediated by various ECM constituents [1]. In the largest cohort (N=126), to our knowledge, of matched patient primary and renal cell carcinoma (RCC) metastases, we identified the upregulation of ECM-related genes in metastases relative to primary RCC tumors. Since these ECM genes are upregulated in metastases, they may play an important role in the metastatic cascade across multiple solid tumors [5]. 2 Downloaded from mct.aacrjournals.org on September 30, 2021. © 2019 American Association for Cancer Research. Author Manuscript Published OnlineFirst on October 1, 2019; DOI: 10.1158/1535-7163.MCT-19-0233 Author manuscripts have been peer reviewed and accepted for publication but have not yet been edited. Since every protein in the ECM contains disulfide bonds, we hypothesized that QSOX1, an enzyme that generates disulfide bonds in substrate proteins, is important for tumor cell growth, adherence and invasion. Overexpression of QSOX1 in cancer was discovered after a C-terminal peptide was detected by mass spectrometry of plasma from patients with pancreatic cancer [6]. Subsequently, QSOX1 overexpression has been reported in many other cancers [7]–[12]. Inhibition of QSOX1 activity with a monoclonal antibody (Mab) revealed that QSOX1 is active extracellularly in stromal fibroblasts and is required for proper incorporation of laminin and fibronectin into the ECM [13], [14]. Further, a small molecule inhibitor of QSOX1, ebselen, reduced proliferation and invasion of pancreatic and renal cancer cell lines in vitro, and reduced tumor growth in vivo [15]. Herein we demonstrate a novel small molecule derived from a high throughput screen of ~50,000 compounds, 3-methoxy-N-[4-(1-pyrrolidinyl)phenyl]benzamide (“SBI-183”), inhibits the enzymatic activity of QSOX1, thereby suppressing the proliferative and invasive phenotype of two renal cancer cell lines (786-O and RCJ-41T2), a triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) cell line (MDA-MB-231), a lung adenocarcinoma cell line (A549), and a pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (MIA PaCa2). Furthermore, we did not observe any compound-related toxicity of normal adherent fibroblasts or non-adherent peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) supporting a role for QSOX1 in tumor derived ECM. Materials & Methods Compounds SBI-183 (molecular weight 296.3723 g/mol) was purchased from ChemBridge Corp. (San Diego CA). Compounds were dissolved in tissue culture-grade DMSO (Sigma-Aldrich) and kept at -80°C as 100 mM stock solutions. See Supplementary Figure 1 for the chemical structure of SBI- 183. Cell Culture RCC line 786-O was purchased from the American Type Culture Collection (ATCC) and maintained in RPMI 1640 (Corning) containing 10% fetal bovine serum (FBS) (Atlanta Biologicals), 1% Penicillin-Streptomycin (Pen-Strep) (Corning), and 1% Glutamax (Gibco). A recently derived sarcomatoid RCC line from Mayo Clinic, RCJ-41T2 [16], was maintained in DMEM in 10% FBS, 1% Pen-Strep, and 1% Glutamax. The TNBC adenocarcinoma cell line MDA-MB-231 (ATCC), lung adenocarcinoma cell line A549 (ATCC), and the pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma cell line MIA PaCa2 (ATCC) were also maintained 10% DMEM. MDA-MB- 231-Luc (Cell Biolabs) was maintained in 10% RPMI 1640 without Pen-Strep. De-identified fibroblasts derived from a 28-year-old Caucasian male with no overt disease were a kind gift from Dr. Clifford Folmes. Peripheral blood mononuclear cells were obtained under an IRB- approved protocol (#06010000548) from Arizona State University. The identity of all cell lines 3 Downloaded from mct.aacrjournals.org on September 30, 2021. © 2019 American Association for Cancer Research. Author Manuscript Published OnlineFirst on October 1, 2019; DOI: 10.1158/1535-7163.MCT-19-0233 Author manuscripts have been peer reviewed and accepted for publication but have not yet been edited. was confirmed by STR analysis. Each cell line also tested negative for mycoplasma and mouse pathogens throughout the study, and were maintained at 37°C in 5% CO2. All cell lines were used immediately upon thawing throughout the study. Stable Lentiviral QSOX1 Knockdown Generation Short hairpin (sh) lentiviral particles were purchased from GeneCopoeia containing either sh742 RNA as described [7] (Catalog # LPP-CS-HSH273J-LVRU6GP-100) or a shScramble (shScr) control (Catalog # LPP- CSHCTR001-LVRU6GP-025). 786-O cells were seeded at 2.5x104 cells/well in a 6-well plate in complete RPMI 1640. Adherent cells were transduced in triplicate with lentiviral particles following the manufacturer’s instructions. After 72 hours, cells were selected in puromycin and sub-cloned by limiting dilution. A monoclonal population denoted as 786-O sh742.E11 was expanded. Knockdown (KD) of QSOX1 was determined to be 90% by qRT-PCR as compared to the 786-O shScr cells (S.