Reduction of cellular polyamine pools results in inhibition of cell proliferation and sometimes in induction of cell death. Reduction of cellular polyamine pools can be achieved by several strategies involving all the mechanisms of polyamine homoeostasis, i.e. biosynthesis, catabolism and transport across the cell membrane. In the present paper, we concentrate on results achieved using the polyamine analogue DENSPM (N(1),N(11)-diethylnorspermine) on different cell lines. We discuss polyamine levels in DENSPM-treated cells in relation to effects on cell cycle kinetics and induction of apoptosis. To really understand the role of polyamines in cell cycle regulation and apoptosis, we believe it is now time to go through the vast polyamine literature in a meta-analysis-based manner. This short review does not claim to be such a study, but it is our hope to stimulate such studies in the polyamine field. Such work is especially important from the viewpoint of introducing drugs that affect polyamine homoeostasis in the treatment of various diseases such as cancer.
Polyamine analogues are presently undergoing clinical evaluation in the treatment of cancer. To better understand under what circumstances treatment with a polyamine analogue will yield beneficial results, we have investigated the effect of N,N-diethylnorspermine (DENSPM) on cell cycle kinetics of the human breast cancer cell lines SK-BR-3, MCF-7, HCC1937, and L56Br-C1. A bromodeoxyuridine-DNA flow cytometry method was used to evaluate the treatment with 10 micromol/l DENSPM on cell cycle kinetics. A correlation between polyamine pool size after DENSPM treatment and cell cycle kinetic effects was found. The most sensitive cell cycle phase was the S phase, followed by an effect on the G2+M phase and then the G1/S transition. The levels of a number of cell cycle regulatory proteins such as cyclin E1, cyclin A2, and cyclin B1 were lowered by DENSPM treatment, which may explain the effects on cell cycle kinetics. The two cell lines that were most sensitive to DENSPM treatment belong to the basal-like subtype of breast cancer and they were deficient with respect to p53, BRCA1, and RB1.
A number of polyamine analogs are currently used in various clinical trials as cancer treatment and it is important to investigate their effects not only on cancer cells but also on normal cells. Treatment with polyamine analogs depletes cells of polyamines and inhibits cell proliferation, but the analogs cannot take over the normal function of the natural polyamines in the cell. In this study, the normal-like breast epithelial cell line MCF-10A was treated with the polyamine analog N',N"-diethylnorspermine (DENSPM). The cells were then studied using a bromodeoxyuridine- DNA flow cytometry method as well as western blot. The ability of both normal-like and breast cancer cells to recover from DENSPM treatment was also studied. DENSPM treatment of MCF-10A cells resulted in a prolongation of the S and G2 +M phases, followed by a G1/S block. The p53/p21/RB1 pathway was involved in the G1/S block as shown by increased levels of p53 and p21 detected by western blot. Decreased levels of cyclin E1, cyclin A2, and cyclin B1 in DENSPM-treated cells can explain the prolongation of cell cycle phases that occurred before the G1/S block. We also show that MCF-10A cells rapidly recover from DENSPM-induced growth inhibition in contrast to four human breast cancer cell lines. The goal of cancer treatment is to cause minimal and reversible damage to normal cells, while cancer cells should be eliminated. Altogether, the data show that treatment with polyamine analogs spares normal cells, while negatively affecting the cancer cells.
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