Bcr-Abl-Mediated Resistance to Apoptosis Is Independent of Constant Tyrosine-Kinase Activity
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Cell Death and Differentiation (2003) 10, 592–598 & 2003 Nature Publishing Group All rights reserved 1350-9047/03 $25.00 www.nature.com/cdd Bcr-Abl-mediated resistance to apoptosis is independent of constant tyrosine-kinase activity AEB Bueno-da-Silva1,2, G Brumatti1,2, FO Russo1,2,3, Introduction DR Green1,3 and GP Amarante-Mendes*,1,2,3 Apoptosis is a genetically controlled form of cell death that 1 plays a fundamental role during the development and in tissue Department of Immunology, Institute of Biomedical Sciences, University of Sa˜o 1 Paulo, Brazil homeostasis in multicellular organisms. During tumorigen- 2 Institute for Investigation in Immunology, Millennium Institute, Brazil esis, the expansion of a transformed cell population is directly 3 La Jolla Institute for Allergy and Immunology, San Diego, CA, USA related to the difference of the rates of proliferation and cell * Corresponding author: GP Amarante-Mendes, Departamento de Imunologia, death presented by these cells.2 Therefore, interference with Instituto de Cieˆncias Biome´dicas, Universidade de Sa˜o Paulo, Av. Prof. Lineu the apoptotic machinery resulting in increased survival ability Prestes, 1730 – Cidade Universita´ria, Sa˜o Paulo, SP – 05508-900 – Brazil. of a certain cell population contributes to the malignant Tel.: +55 11 3091 7362; Fax: +55 11 3091 7224; E-mail: [email protected] phenotype found in some forms of cancer. This seems to be Received 22.7.02; revised 3.12.02; accepted 6.12.02 the case of the Philadelphia (Ph) chromosome-positive Edited by SJ Martin leukemia. Over 95% of cases of chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML) and 15–35% of acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL) are Abstract associated with the Ph chromosome, the outcome of a Bcr-Abl is one of the most potent antiapoptotic molecules and reciprocal translocation between chromosomes 9 and 22, which generates the chimeric Bcr-Abl molecule with intrinsic is the tyrosine-kinase implicated in Philadelphia (Ph) tyrosine-kinase activity and altered subcellular compartmen- chromosome-positive leukemia. It is still obscure how Bcr- talization.3 Bcr-Abl molecules exist in two major isoforms: a Abl provides the leukemic cell a strong resistance to 210-kDa protein detected in CML and a 185-kDa fusion chemotherapeutic drugs. A rational drug development protein in ALL. In addition, a more rare protein of 230 kDa is produced a specific inhibitor of the catalytic activity of Bcr- associated with some forms of chronic neutrophilic leukemia Abl called STI571. This drug was shown to eliminate Bcr-Abl- (CNL). In every case, Bcr-Abl has been implicated in cellular positive cells both in vitro and in vivo, although resistant cells transformation and inhibition of apoptosis.4–6 may appear in culture and relapse occurs in some patients. In Transformation by Bcr-Abl requires its tyrosine-kinase 7,8 the study described here, Bcr-Abl-positive cells treated with activity as well as the action of the multiple functional domains presented in this molecule to couple downstream tyrosine-kinase inhibitors such as herbimycin A, genistein or 5,9–13 STI571 lost their phosphotyrosine-containing proteins, but signal transduction pathways. Many molecular targets have been described to account, at were still extremely resistant to apoptosis. Therefore, in the least in part, for the resistance to apoptosis found in Bcr-Abl- absence of tyrosine-kinase activity, Bcr-Abl-positive cells positive cells. We have found that Bcr-Abl induces the continue to signal biochemically to prevent apoptosis expression of the antiapoptotic protein Bcl-xL, and that induced by chemotherapeutic drugs. We propose that downregulation of Bcl-xL by antisense oligonucleotides secondary antiapoptotic signals are entirely responsible for partially sensitize Bcr-Abl-positive cells to apoptosis.14 Later, the resistance of Bcr-Abl-positive cells. Precise determination it was shown that Bcr-Abl activates the transcription of bcl-xL of such signals and rational drug development against them through the activation of Stat5.15–17 The PI3K/Akt pathway should improve the means to combat Ph chromosome- was also suggested to participate in the Bcr-Abl-mediated 18,19 positive leukemia. resistance to apoptosis, although it is important to mention that in our experimental system, using HL-60 cells Cell Death and Differentiation (2003) 10, 592–598. doi:10.1038/ bcr-abl sj.cdd.4401210 transfected with p185 , the strong antiapoptotic signal is clearly independent of PI3K activity.20 Another molecule potentially involved in the apoptosis protection found in Bcr- Keywords: apoptosis; Bcr-Abl; leukemia; tyrosine-kinase; Abl-positive cells is the transcription factor NF-kB, which is STI571 implicated in the induction of endogenous caspase inhibitors of the IAP family21 and was shown to be required by Bcr-Abl- Abbreviations: ALL, acute lymphocytic leukemia; CHX, cyclo- mediated transformation.22,23 heximide; CML, chronic myelogenous leukemia; FCS, fetal calf Although many more work has been published on Bcr-Abl- serum; mAb, monoclonal antibody; pAb, polyclonal antibody; pY, mediated signaling cascades, we still know very little about phosphotyrosine; STS, staurosporine; VP16, etoposide; VM26, how this molecule interferes with the apoptotic machinery. In teniposide. particular, it is not known whether Bcr-Abl tyrosine-kinase is required to be constantly active in order to maintain the resistance to apoptosis observed in Bcr-Abl-expressing cells. Therefore, in the present study, we use tyrosine-kinase Bcr-Abl kinase-independent resistance to apoptosis AEB Bueno-da-Silva et al 593 inhibitors to address whether the presence of phosphotyr- Bcr-Abl-mediated resistance to apoptosis is osine (pY)-containing proteins is necessary to prevent preserved in HL-60 cells treated with STI571 apoptosis induced by a variety of apoptogenic insults. Since HL-60.Bcr-Abl cells were still resistant to apoptosis in situations where the level of pY-containing proteins dropped substantially, we decided to broaden our investigation and test whether a specific Bcr-Abl tyrosine-kinase inhibitor would Results provide different results than herbimycin A and genistein. Broad-spectrum inhibitors of tyrosine-kinases STI571 is a very potent Bcr-Abl kinase inhibitor that has been used with great success in clinical trials to treat Ph block phosphotyrosine-containing proteins but chromosome-positive leukemia (reviewed in Mauro and not the resistance to apoptosis of HL-60.Bcr-Abl Druker24). In addition, it has been shown that cell lines cells derived from Ph chromosome-positive leukemia patients die To investigate the role of pY-containing proteins in Bcr-Abl- upon treatment for a few days with STI571.25, 26 mediated resistance to apoptosis, we treated HL-60 and HL- We therefore incubated HL-60 and HL60.Bcr-Abl cells with 60.Bcr-Abl cells with two broad-spectrum tyrosine-kinase 10 mM STI571 and inspected the levels of Bcr-Abl and pY- inhibitors, namely herbimycin A and genistein. Both drugs containing proteins after 2 and 24 h. As we can see in Figure 3, were able to inhibit the appearance of pY-containing proteins HL-60 cells are very meager in pY-containing proteins. In in a dose-dependent manner, as assessed by Western blots contrast, HL-60.Bcr-Abl exhibited a great amount of these using anti-pY antibodies. Herbimycin A was most efficient at molecules, which disappeared after 2 h in the presence of 100 ng/ml (Figure 1a), whereas genistein was capable to STI571 and remained almost undetectable at least for the significantly reduce the levels of pY-containing proteins at following 22 h. With these results in mind, we pretreated HL- 250 mg/ml (Figure 2a). Incubation for 24 h with either 60 and HL60.Bcr-Abl cells with STI571 for 2 h and then herbimycin A or genistein alone did not induce cell death in incubated each of them in the presence or absence of VM26, both HL-60 and HL-60.Bcr-Abl cells (Figures 1b and 2b, left VP16, CHX or STS for 22 h. At the end of the assay, we panels). Interestingly, even in the presence of 100 ng/ml evaluated the level of apoptosis in each experimental situation herbimycin A (Figure 1b, center and right panels) or 250 mg/ml by quantify phosphatidylserine externalization. Although the genistein (Figure 2b, center and right panels), HL-60.Bcr-Abl STI571 blocked the Bcr-Abl tyrosine-kinase activity, and the cells were extremely resistant to apoptosis induced by 100 mM consequent appearance of pY-containing proteins, prior to CHX or 50 mM VP16. apoptogenic drug administration, it did not interfere with the resistance to apoptosis of HL-60.Bcr-Abl for the following 22 h (Figure 4). a HL-60 HL-60.Bcr-Abl Herbimycin A: 00 110100 (ng/ml) a HL-60.Bcr-Abl Anti-PY Genistein: 0 2 10 50 250 (µg/ml) Anti-PY b HL-60 HL-60.Bcr-Abl b HL-60 100 Untreated100 CHX 100 VP16 HL-60.Bcr-Abl 100 100 100 80 80 80 Untreated CHX VP16 80 80 80 60 60 60 60 60 60 40 40 40 40 40 40 % apoptosis 20 20 20 % apoptosis 20 20 20 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 10 100 01 10 100 0 1 10 100 0 100 101 102 103 100 101 102 103 100 101 102 103 Herbimycin A (ng/ml) Genistein (µg/ml) Figure 1 Herbimycin A inhibits pY-containing proteins but does not interfere Figure 2 Genistein inhibits pY-containing proteins but does not interfere with with the resistance of HL-60.Bcr-Abl cells. HL-60 and HL-60.Bcr-Abl cells were the resistance of HL-60.Bcr-Abl cells. HL-60 and HL-60.Bcr-Abl cells were pretreated for 1 h with different concentration of herbimycin A (a) and pretreated for 45 min with different concentration of genistein (a) and subsequently incubated overnight in the presence of 100 mM CHX or 50 mM subsequently incubated overnight in the presence of 100 mM CHX or 50 mM VP-16 (b).