Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) is one of the most important angiogenic growth factors for tumor angiogenesis. Here, we sought to explore whether RNA interference (RNAi) targeting matrix metalloproteinase-2 (MMP-2) could disrupt VEGFmediated angiogenesis in lung cancer. MMP-2 siRNA inhibited lung cancer cell-induced tube formation of endothelial cells in vitro; addition of recombinant human-MMP-2 restored angiogenesis. MMP-2 transcriptional suppression decreased VEGF, phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3K) protein levels and AKT phosphorylation in lung cancer cells. In addition, MMP-2 suppression decreased hypoxia inducible factor-1a (HIF-1a), a transcription factor for VEGF, as determined by electrophoretic mobility shift assay (EMSA). We also show that MMP-2 suppression disrupted PI3K dependent VEGF expression; ectopic expression of myr-AKT restored VEGF inhibition. Further, MMP-2 suppression decreased the interaction of integrin-aVb3 and MMP-2 as confirmed by immunoprecipitation analyses. Studies with either function blocking integrin-aVb3 antibody or MMP-2 specific inhibitor (ARP-100) indicate that suppression of MMP-2 decreased integrin-aVb3-mediated induction of PI3K/AKT leading to decreased VEGF expression. Moreover, A549 xenograft tissue sections from mice that treated with MMP-2 siRNA showed reduced expression of VEGF and the angiogenic marker, factor-VIII. The inhibition of tumor angiogenesis in MMP-2 suppressed tumor sections was associated with decreased co-localization of integrin-aVb3 and MMP-2. In summary, these data provide new insights into the mechanisms underlying MMP-2-mediated VEGF expression in lung tumor angiogenesis.

Lung cancer is currently the leading cause of cancer deaths in the United States. Conventional therapeutic treatments, including surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation therapy, have achieved only limited success. The overexpression of proteases, such as urokinase-type plasminogen activator (uPA), its receptor (uPAR), and matrix metalloproteinases (MMP), is correlated with the progression of lung cancer. In the present study, we used a replication-deficient adenovirus capable of expressing antisense uPAR and antisense MMP-9 transcripts to simultaneously down-regulate uPAR and MMP-9 in H1299 cells. Ad-uPAR-MMP-9 infection of H1299 cells resulted in a dose-and time-dependent decrease of uPAR protein levels and MMP-9 activity as determined by Western blotting and gelatin zymography, respectively. Corresponding immunohistochemical analysis also showed that Ad-uPAR-MMP-9 infection inhibited uPAR and MMP-9 expression. As shown by Boyden chamber assay, Ad-uPAR-MMP-9 infection significantly decreased the invasive capacity of H1299 cells compared with mock and Ad-CMV (empty vector) -infected cells in vitro . Furthermore, Ad-uPAR-MMP-9 infection inhibited capillary-like structure formation in H1299 cells cocultured with endothelial cells in a dose-dependent manner compared with mock-and Ad-CMV-infected cells. Ad-uPAR-MMP-9 injection caused the regression of s.c. induced tumors after s.c. injection with H1299 lung cancer cells and inhibited lung metastasis in the metastatic model with A549 cells. These data suggest that Ad-uPAR-MMP-9 shows its antitumor activity against both established and early phases of lung cancer metastases by causing the destruction of the tumor vasculature. In summary, adenovirus-mediated inhibition of uPA-uPAR interaction and MMP-9 on the cell surface may be a promising anti-invasion and antimetastatic strategy for cancer gene therapy. [Mol Cancer Ther 2005;4(9):1399 -408]

Although radiotherapy improves survival in patients, GBMs tend to relapse with augmented tumor migration and invasion even after irradiation (IR). Aberrant NF-κB and Stat3 activation and interaction has been suggested in several human tumors. However, possible NF-κB/Stat3 interaction and the role of Stat3 in maintenance of NF-κB nuclear retention in glioblastoma (GBM) still remain unknown. Stat3 and NF-κB (p65) physically interact with one another in the nucleus in glioma tumors. Most importantly, GST pull-down assays identified that Stat3 binds to the p65 transactivation domain (TAD) and is present in the NF-κB DNA-binding complex. Irradiation significantly elevated nuclear phospho-p65/phospho-Stat3 interaction in correlation with increased ICAM-1 and sICAM-1 levels, migration and invasion in human glioma xenograft cell lines 4910 and 5310. ChIP and promoter luciferase activity assays confirmed the critical role of adjacent NF-κB (+399) and Stat3 (+479) binding motifs in the proximal intron-1 in elevating IR-induced ICAM-1 expression. Specific inhibition of Stat3 and NF-κB with Stat3.siRNA or JSH-23 severely inhibited IR-induced p65 recruitment onto ICAM-1 intron-1 and suppressed migratory properties in both cell lines. On the other hand, Stat3C- or IR-induced Stat3 promoter recruitment was significantly decreased in p65-knockdown cells, thereby suggesting the reciprocal regulation between p65 and Stat3. We also observed a significant increase in NF-κB enrichment on ICAM-1 intron-1 and ICAM-1 transactivation in Stat3C overexpressing cells. In in vivo orthotopic experiments, suppression of tumor growth in Stat3.si+IR-treated mice was associated with the inhibition of IR-induced p-p65/p-Stat3 nuclear-colocalization and ICAM-1 levels. To our knowledge, this is the first study showing the crucial role of NF-κB/Stat3 nuclear association in IR-induced ICAM-1 regulation and implies that targeting NF-κB/Stat3 interaction may have future therapeutic significance in glioma treatment.

Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) is the most aggressive brain cancer, and to date, no curative treatment has been developed. In this study, we report that miR-211, a microRNA predicted to target MMP-9, is suppressed in grade IV GBM specimens. Furthermore, we found that miR-211 suppression in GBM involves aberrant methylation-mediated epigenetic silencing of the miR-211 promoter. Indeed, we observed a highly significant inverse correlation between miR-211 expression and MMP-9 protein levels, which is indicative of post-transcriptional control of gene expression. Additionally, shRNA specific for MMP-9 (pM) promoted miR-211 expression via demethylation of miR-211 promoter-associated CpG islands (-140 to +56). In independent experiments, we confirmed that miR-211 overexpression and pM treatments led to the activation of the intrinsic mitochondrial/Caspase-9/3-mediated apoptotic pathway in both glioma cells and cancer stem cells (CSC). We also investigated whether miR-211 is involved in the regulation of MMP-9 and thus plays a functional role in GBM. We found an acute inhibitory effect of miR-211 on glioma cell invasion and migration via suppression of MMP-9. Given the insensitivity of some GBMs to radiation and chemotherapy (temozolomide) along with the hypothesis that glioma CSC cause resistance to therapy, our study indicates that miR-211 or pM in combination with ionizing radiation (IR) and temozolomide significantly induces apoptosis and DNA fragmentation. Of note, miR-211- and pM-treated CSC demonstrated increased drug retention capacity, as observed by MDR1/P-gp mediated-Rhodamine 123 drug efflux activity assay. These results suggest that either rescuing miR-211 expression or downregulation of MMP-9 may have a new therapeutic application for GBM patients in the future.

CD44 is implicated in cell-cell and cell-matrix adhesion, cell migration, and signaling. CD44 cleavage correlates with the tumor burden and metastatic potential in various cancers. In this study, we demonstrate that matrix metalloproteinase-9 (MMP-9) acts as a processing enzyme for CD44 cleavage. Further, this processing event stimulates cell motility and inhibition of either CD44 or MMP-9 inhibited cell migration. MMP-9 and CD44 co-localization on the cell surface was observed in the histological sections of human glioblastoma (GBM) tissues. Confocal microscopy and co-immunoprecipitation studies in GBM xenograft cells further confirm this interaction. The interaction of MMP-9 with CD44 induced CD44 cleavage which was inhibited by both transcriptional knockdown of MMP-9 and with MMP-9 specific inhibitor. Further, supplementation of purified and activated human MMP-9 (hMMP-9) in MMP-9-knockdown cells resumed CD44 cleavage and migration. Additionally, activated hMMP-9 protein induced cleavage of recombinant human CD44 (rhCD44) in an in vitro assay. Selective overexpression of either extracellular domain (CD44ECD) or intracellular domain (CD44ICD) confirmed that CD44ECD played a role in cell migration and invasion. Taken together, our results suggest that MMP-9 is involved in the shedding of CD44 from cancer cells, which would promote the malignant potential of tumor cells.

MMP-2 plays pivotal role in the degradation of extracellular matrix, and thereby enhances the invasive, proliferative and metastatic potential in cancer. Knockdown of MMP-2 using MMP-2 siRNA (pM) in human glioma xenograft cell lines 4910 and 5310 decreased cell proliferation compared to mock- and pSV-(scrambled vector)treatments, as determined by BrDU incorporation, Ki-67 staining and clonogenic survival assay. Cytokine array and Western blotting using tumor conditioned media displayed modulated secretory levels of various cytokines including GM-CSF, IL-6, IL-8, IL-10, TNF-α, angiogenin, VEGF and PDGF-BB in MMP-2 knockdown cells. Further, cDNA PCR array indicated potential negative regulation of JAK/Stat3 pathway in pM-treated cells. Mechanistically, MMP-2 is involved in complex formation with α5 and β1 integrins and MMP-2 downregulation inhibited α5β1 integrin mediated Stat3 phosphorylation and nuclear translocation. EMSA and ChIP assays showed inhibited Stat3 DNA-binding activity and recruitment at CyclinD1 and c-Myc promoters in pM-treated cells. In individual experiments, IL-6 or siRNA-insensitive MMP-2 overexpression by pM-FL-A141G counteracted and restored the pM-inhibited Stat3 DNA-binding activity suggesting IL-6/Stat3 signaling suppression in pM-treated 4910 and 5310 cells. MMP-2/α5β1 binding is enhanced in rhMMP-2 treatments resulting in elevated Stat3 DNA-binding activity and recruitment on CyclinD1 and c-Myc promoters. Activation of α5β1 signaling by Fibronectin adhesion elevated pM-inhibited Stat3 phosphorylation whereas blocking α5β1 abrogated constitutive Stat3 activation. In vivo experiments with orthotropic tumor model revealed the decreased tumor size in pM-treatment compared to mock- or pSV-treatments. Immunoflorescence studies in tumor sections corroborated our in vitro findings evidencing high expression and co-localization of MMP-2/α5β1, which is decreased upon pM-treatment along with significantly reduced IL-6, phospho-Stat3, CyclinD1, c-Myc, Ki-67 and PCNA expression levels. Our data indicates the possible role of MMP-2/α5β1 interaction in the regulation of α5β1-mediated IL-6/Stat3 signaling activation and signifies the therapeutic potential of blocking MMP-2/α5β1 interaction in glioma treatment.

BackgroundOur previous work and that of others strongly suggests a relationship between the infiltrative phenotype of gliomas and the expression of MMP-2. Radiation therapy, which represents one of the mainstays of glioma treatment, is known to increase cell invasion by inducing MMP-2. Thus, inhibition of MMP-2 provides a potential means for improving the efficacy of radiotherapy for malignant glioma.Methodology/Principal FindingsWe have tested the ability of a plasmid vector-mediated MMP-2 siRNA (p-MMP-2) to modulate ionizing radiation-induced invasive phenotype in the human glioma cell lines U251 and U87. Cells that were transfected with p-MMP-2 with and without radiation showed a marked reduction of MMP-2 compared to controls and pSV-transfected cells. A significant reduction of proliferation, migration, invasion and angiogenesis of cells transfected with p-MMP-2 and in combination with radiation was observed compared to controls. Western blot analysis revealed that radiation-enhanced levels of VEGF, VEGFR-2, pVEGFR-2, p-FAK, and p-p38 were inhibited with p-MMP-2-transfected cells. TUNEL staining showed that radiation did not induce apoptosis in U87 and U251 cells while a significant increase in TUNEL-positive cells was observed when irradiated cells were simultaneously transfected with p-MMP-2 as compared to controls. Intracranial tumor growth was predominantly inhibited in the animals treated with p-MMP-2 alone or in combination with radiation compared to controls.Conclusion/SignificanceMMP-2 inhibition, mediated by p-MMP-2 and in combination with radiation, significantly reduced tumor cell migration, invasion, angiogenesis and tumor growth by modulating several important downstream signaling molecules and directing cells towards apoptosis. Taken together, our results demonstrate the efficacy of p-MMP-2 in inhibiting radiation-enhanced tumor invasion and progression and suggest that it may act as a potent adjuvant for radiotherapy in glioma patients.

Matrix metalloproteinases (MMP) are a group of proteinases that have normal physiologic roles degrading and remodeling the extracellular matrix. They also have multiple roles in different stages of tumor progression. Elevated levels of MMPs have been observed in many tumors; these increases have a strong association with the invasive phenotype. MMP-2 and MMP-9 are particularly involved in cancer invasion and metastasis. MMP inhibitors are currently being tested as therapeutic agents for a number of cancers in both preclinical models and in clinical trials. To date, clinical trials using this strategy have had limited efficacy. A major concern is the lack of specificity of commercially available MMP inhibitors. An adenoviral vector expressing small interfering RNA against the MMP-2 gene (Ad-MMP-2) was constructed to specifically inhibit MMP-2 expression. The effect of Ad-MMP-2 on invasion, angiogenesis, tumor growth, and metastasis of A549 lung cancer cell was evaluated. Ad-MMP-2 infection of lung cancer cells showed specific down-regulation of MMP-2 protein, activity, and transcription as determined by Western blotting, gelatin zymography, and reverse transcription-PCR. Ad-MMP-2 inhibition also mitigated lung cancer invasion and migration, and reduced tumor cell -induced angiogenesis in vitro. In an experimental metastatic lung tumor model, treatment of established tumors by Ad-MMP-2 inhibited s.c. tumor growth and formation of lung nodules in mice. Adenoviral-mediated RNA interference against MMP-2 has significant therapeutic potential for lung cancer and exerts some of this effect by inhibiting angiogenesis. [Mol Cancer Ther 2006;5(9):2289 -99]