Induction of Erythropoietin Increases the Cell Proliferation Rate in a Hypoxia‑Inducible Factor‑1‑Dependent and ‑Independent Manner in Renal Cell Carcinoma Cell Lines
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
ONCOLOGY LETTERS 5: 1765-1770, 2013 Induction of erythropoietin increases the cell proliferation rate in a hypoxia‑inducible factor‑1‑dependent and ‑independent manner in renal cell carcinoma cell lines YUTAKA FUJISUE1, TAKATOSHI NAKAGAWA2, KIYOSHI TAKAHARA1, TERUO INAMOTO1, SATOSHI KIYAMA1, HARUHITO AZUMA1 and MICHIO ASAHI2 Departments of 1Urology and 2Pharmacology, Faculty of Medicine, Osaka Medical College, Takatsuki, Osaka 569-8686, Japan Received November 28, 2012; Accepted February 25, 2013 DOI: 10.3892/ol.2013.1283 Abstract. Erythropoietin (Epo) is a potent inducer of erythro- Introduction poiesis that is mainly produced in the kidney. Epo is expressed not only in the normal kidney, but also in renal cell carcinomas Erythropoietin (Epo) is a 30-kDa glycoprotein that functions (RCCs). The aim of the present study was to gain insights as an important cytokine in erythrocytes. Epo is usually into the roles of Epo and its receptor (EpoR) in RCC cells. produced by stromal cells of the adult kidney cortex or fetal The study used two RCC cell lines, Caki-1 and SKRC44, in liver and then released into the blood, with its production which Epo and EpoR are known to be highly expressed. The initially induced by hypoxia or hypotension (1-5). In the bone proliferation rate and expression level of hypoxia-inducible marrow, Epo binds to the erythropoietin receptor (EpoR) factor-1α (HIF-1α) were measured prior to and following expressed in erythroid progenitor cells or undifferentiated Epo treatment and under normoxic and hypoxic conditions. erythroblasts, which induces signal transduction mechanisms To examine whether HIF-1α or Epo were involved in cellular that protect the undifferentiated erythrocytes from apoptosis proliferation during hypoxia, these proteins were knocked and promote their proliferation and differentiation. down using small interfering RNA (siRNA) in Caki-1 and Previous studies have demonstrated that Epo and EpoR SKRC44 cells. The results demonstrated that Epo enhanced are not only produced or expressed in the kidneys, but the proliferation of the Caki-1 and SKRC44 cells. HIF-1α also in other cells and tissues, including macrophages (6), expression was increased upon the induction of hypoxia in the vascular endothelial cells (7), neurons (8), myoblasts (9), Caki-1 cells, but remained unaffected in the SKRC44 cells. the uterus, ovaries (10) and mammary glands (11), and in The proliferation rate was increased under hypoxic conditions various malignant tumors, including angioblastomas (12), in the Caki-1 cells, but was decreased in the SKRC44 cells. meningiomas (13), uterine or ovarian cancer (14) and breast Under hypoxic conditions, the proliferation of the Caki-1 cells cancer (15). The secretion of Epo due to hypoxia is upregu- was significantly reduced by the knock‑down of HIF‑1α or lated by the induction of Epo mRNA via hypoxia-inducible Epo, while the proliferation of the SKRC44 cells was signifi- factor (HIF)-1 signaling (16). cantly suppressed by the knock-down of Epo, but not HIF-1α. HIF-1 contains two subunits, HIF-1α and β. The expression In conclusion, these data suggest that the induction of Epo may of HIF-1α is altered by various conditions. HIF-1α is ubiqui- accelerate the proliferation of the RCC cell lines in either a tinated and proteolyzed in the proteasome under normoxic HIF-1α-dependent or -independent manner. conditions. With hypoxia, however, it is stabilized to bind with HIF-1β to form a heterodimer, which is internalized into the nucleus and binds with a hypoxia responsive element to induce Epo transcription. HIF-1β is constitutively expressed. HIF-1 contributes to hypoxia adaptation at the tissue or Correspondence to: Professor Michio Asahi, Department of cellular level. At the tissue level, it upregulates the expres- Pharmacology, Faculty of Medicine, Osaka Medical College, 2-7 sion levels of Epo and vascular endothelial growth factor Daigaku-cho, Takatsuki, Osaka 569-8686, Japan (VEGF), which promote hematopoiesis and angiogenesis. At E-mail: [email protected] the cellular level, HIF-1 regulates cellular metabolism by the Abbreviations: Epo, erythropoietin; EpoR, erythropoietin receptor; upregulation of glycolytic enzymes and glucose transporters, RCC, renal cell carcinoma; HIF-1α, hypoxia-inducible factor-1α; which shifts the energy metabolism to oxygen-independent VHL, von Hippel-Lindau glycolysis. Dysfunction in these pathways may be associated with the onset or progression of cancer (17), e.g., the progres- Key words: erythropoietin, renal cell carcinoma, hypoxia-inducible sion of tumor angiogenesis by VEGF overexpression may be factor-1 correlated with tumor infiltration or metastasis (18). Numerous anti-angiogenesis therapies against HIF-1 or VEGF have been developed and tested (19). 1766 FUJISUE et al: INDUCTION OF ERYTHROPOIETIN IN RENAL CELL CARCINOMA CELL LINES Epo binds to EpoR, resulting in the activation of the and glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase (GAPDH) janus kinase-signal transducer and activator of transcription expression was quantified for normalization of the amount (JAK-STAT) signal transduction pathway (20). JAK2 phos- of cDNA in each sample. The specificity of the amplified phorylates STAT5, which is internalized into the nucleus to product was monitored using its melting curve. The primers induce the transcription of specific genes (21). The proliferation used in the present study are as follows: Epo, forward primer, signaling pathways, including the mitogen-activated protein 5'-CCCTGTTGGTCAACTCTTCC-3' and reverse primer, kinase (MAPK) and phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase-Ak-thymoma 5'-GTGTACAGCTTCAGCTTTCC-3'; EpoR, forward primer, (PI3K-AKT) pathways, which are involved in tumor prolifera- 5'-GCACCGAGTGTGTGCTGAGCAA-3' and reverse tion, are also activated (22). A previous study demonstrated that primer, 5'-GGTCAGCAGCACCAGGATGAC-3'; GAPDH, EpoR was expressed in kidney tissues removed by nephrectomy forward primer, 5'-ATTGCCCTCAACGACCACTT-3' and or in renal cell carcinoma (RCC) cell lines, and that the prolif- reverse primer, 5'-AGGTCCACCACCCTGTTGCT-3' (26,27) eration rate of these cells increased with the addition of Epo in a dose-dependent manner (23). Furthermore, RCC patients Cell proliferation assay [water‑soluble tetrazolium salt‑1 with high expression levels of EpoR in the kidney tissues and (WST‑1) assay]. Cell proliferation under normoxic or hypoxic high serum Epo (s-Epo) concentrations (>30 mU/ml) had better conditions was measured using Cell Counting Kit-8 (Wako 5-year survival rates than those with low EpoR levels and s-Epo Pure Chemicals, Osaka, Japan). Briefly, the cells were seeded concentrations (24). at a density of 1x104 per well in 96-well plates and allowed In the present study, five RCC cell lines were character- to attach overnight in appropriate serum-containing media. ized and two cell lines in which Epo and EpoR were highly The cells were rendered quiescent by starvation in serum-free expressed were identified. The comparative study of these two media for 24 h. FBS was used as a positive control at 10% of cell lines revealed that the induction of Epo may accelerate the total media volume. Various Epo doses (0.1, 0.33, 1, 3.3 and cellular proliferation in either a HIF-1α-dependent or -inde- 10 ng/ml) were then added and incubation was continued for a pendent manner. The possibility of using Epo as a promising further 24 h (28). The cellular proliferation was measured by target for anti-RCC drugs was also addressed. adding a 1/10 volume of WST-1. Following a 1-h incubation with WST-1, the absorbance at 450 nm was recorded using a Material and methods plate reader (Bio-Rad, Hercules, CA, USA). Materials. The monoclonal anti-HIF-1α antibody was purchased HIF‑1α induction. For HIF-1α induction, the cells were incu- from Invitrogen (Carlsbad, CA, USA) and the anti-Epo antibody bated with 125 µM of cobalt chloride (CoCl2) or were cultured was purchased from Santa Cruz Biotechnology, Inc. (Santa in a hypoxia chamber (Stemcell Technologies, Vancouver, Cruz, CA, USA). The siRNAs against HIF-1α or Epo were Canada), which was adjusted to 5% O2 and 5% CO2 for the purchased from Sigma-Aldrich (St. Louis, MO, USA). period of interest. Cell culture. The 769P (renal cell adenocarcinoma), 786O Western blot analysis. The cells were harvested in lysis (renal cell adenocarcinoma) and Ku19/20 cells (RCC) were buffer containing 20 mM Tris-HCl (pH 7.4), 150 mM NaCl, maintained in RPMI-1640. The SKRC44 cells (RCC) were 5 mM ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA), 1% (w/v) maintained in Dulbecco's modified Eagle's medium (DMEM) Nonidet P‑40, 10% (w/v) glycerol, 5 mM sodium pyrophosphate, and the Caki-1 cells (RCC) were grown in minimal essential 10 mM sodium fluoride, 1 mM sodium orthovanadate, 10 mM medium (MEM) in a humidified atmosphere containing 5% β‑glycerophosphate, 1 mM phenylmethylsulfonyl fluoride, 2 µg/ CO2 in the air (normoxia) (25). Unless stated otherwise, the ml aprotinin, 5 µg/ml leupeptin, and 1 mM dithiothreitol. In total, media were supplemented with 10% fetal bovine serum (FBS), five micrograms of the cellular proteins (50 µg for Epo detec- 100 U/ml penicillin and 100 µg/ml streptomycin. The study tion) were electrophoresed and blotted onto a polyvinylidene was approved by the Ethics Committee of Osaka Medical difluouride (PVDF) membrane (FluoroTrans, Pall, Pensacola, College, Takatsuki, Osaka, Japan (569-0801). FL, USA). Subsequent to blocking with 5% skimmed milk in Tris-buffered saline (TBS; 25 mM Tris, 0.15 M NaCl, pH 7.4) Real‑time PCR. Total RNA was prepared from each of the containing 0.1% Tween‑20 (TBS‑T) for 1 h, the membrane was five cell lines using TRIzol reagent (Invitrogen), according to incubated with a 1:1000 dilution of each antibody for a further the manufacturer's instructions. Real-time PCR analyses were hour. The membrane was washed three times with TBS-T for performed using a Thermal Cycler Dice Real Time System 10 min each, then the second antibody was added at a dilution of (Takara Bio, Shiga, Japan).