Prolonged pemetrexed pretreatment augments persistence of cisplatin-induced DNA damage and eliminates resistant lung cancer stem-like cells associated with EMT.

Tièche, Colin; Peng, Ren-Wang; Dorn, Patrick; Froment, Laurène; Schmid, Ralph; Marti, Thomas (2016). Prolonged pemetrexed pretreatment augments persistence of cisplatin-induced DNA damage and eliminates resistant lung cancer stem-like cells associated with EMT. BMC cancer, 16(125), p. 125. BioMed Central 10.1186/s12885-016-2117-4

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BACKGROUND

Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer-related mortality, and new therapeutic options are urgently needed. Non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) accounts for approximately 85% of all lung cancers, with the current standard regimen of care for NSCLC including chemotherapy with pemetrexed as a single agent or in combination with platinum-based agents, e.g. cisplatin. Pemetrexed is a folic acid antagonist that inhibits the synthesis of precursor nucleotides, whereas cisplatin directly induces DNA adducts, the repair of which is dependent on sufficiently high nucleotide levels. In the clinical setting, the pemetrexed-cisplatin combination therapy is administered concomitantly. We hypothesized that prolonged pretreatment with pemetrexed could be beneficial, as prior depletion of nucleotide pools could sensitize cancer cells to subsequent treatment with cisplatin.

METHODS

NSCLC A549 and H460 cells were treated with pemetrexed for 72 h. In addition, 24 h of cisplatin treatment was initiated at day 1, 2 or 3 resulting in either simultaneous pemetrexed application or pemetrexed pretreatment for 24 or 48 h, respectively. Cell growth and colony formation as well as senescence induction were quantified after treatment. Cell cycle distribution and phosphorylation of histone variant H2AX as a surrogate marker for DNA damage was quantified by flow cytometry. Relative changes in gene expression were determined by quantitative real time PCR.

RESULTS

Prolonged pemetrexed pretreatment for 48 h prior to cisplatin treatment maximally delayed long-term cell growth and significantly reduced the number of recovering clones. Moreover, apoptosis and senescence were augmented and recovery from treatment-induced DNA damage was delayed. Interestingly, a cell population was identified that displayed an epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT) and which had a stem cell phenotype. This population was highly resistant to concomitant pemetrexed-cisplatin treatment but was sensitized by pemetrexed pretreatment.

CONCLUSIONS

Adaptation of the standard treatment schedule to include pretreatment with pemetrexed optimizes the anticancer efficiency of pemetrexed-cisplatin combination therapy, which correlates with a persistence of treatment-induced DNA damage. Therefore, this study warrants further investigations to elucidate whether such an adaptation could enhance the effectiveness of the standard clinical treatment regimen. In addition, a subpopulation of therapy resistant cells with EMT and cancer stem cell features was identified that was resistant to the standard treatment regimen but sensitive to pemetrexed pretreatment combined with cisplatin.

Item Type:

Journal Article (Original Article)

Division/Institute:

04 Faculty of Medicine > Pre-clinic Human Medicine > BioMedical Research (DBMR) > Forschungsbereich Mu50 > Forschungsgruppe Thoraxchirurgie
04 Faculty of Medicine > Department of Gastro-intestinal, Liver and Lung Disorders (DMLL) > Clinic of Thoracic Surgery

Graduate School:

Graduate School for Cellular and Biomedical Sciences (GCB)

UniBE Contributor:

Tièche, Colin, Peng, Ren-Wang, Dorn, Patrick, Froment, Laurène, Schmid, Ralph, Marti, Thomas

Subjects:

500 Science > 570 Life sciences; biology
600 Technology > 610 Medicine & health

ISSN:

1471-2407

Publisher:

BioMed Central

Language:

English

Submitter:

Thomas Michael Marti

Date Deposited:

24 Jan 2017 16:36

Last Modified:

05 Dec 2022 15:01

Publisher DOI:

10.1186/s12885-016-2117-4

PubMed ID:

26895954

BORIS DOI:

10.7892/boris.93804

URI:

https://boris.unibe.ch/id/eprint/93804

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