Identification of novel anti-cancer compounds with high efficacy and low toxicity is critical in drug development. High-throughput screening and other such strategies are generally resource-intensive. Therefore, in silico computer-aided drug design has gained rapid acceptance and popularity. We employed our proprietary computational platform (CHEMSAS®), which uses a unique combination of traditional and modern pharmacology principles, statistical modeling, medicinal chemistry, and machine-learning technologies to discover and optimize novel compounds that could target various cancers. COTI-2 is a small molecule candidate anti-cancer drug identified using CHEMSAS. This study describes the in vitro and in vivo evaluation of COTI-2. Our data demonstrate that COTI-2 is effective against a diverse group of human cancer cell lines regardless of their tissue of origin or genetic makeup. Most treated cancer cell lines were sensitive to COTI-2 at nanomolar concentrations. When compared to traditional chemotherapy or targeted-therapy agents, COTI-2 showed superior activity against tumor cells, in vitro and in vivo. Despite its potent anti-tumor efficacy, COTI-2 was safe and well-tolerated in vivo. Although the mechanism of action of COTI-2 is still under investigation, preliminary results indicate that it is not a traditional kinase or an Hsp90 inhibitor.
The Wilms' tumor 1 gene (WT1) plays an essential role in urogenital development and malignancy. Through DNA binding, WT1 can either enhance or repress transcription depending on the context of the DNA-binding sites or the cell type in which it is expressed. WT1 is overexpressed in a variety of human cancers, including leukemia and breast cancer; in these diseases, the expression of WT1 is associated with a poor prognosis. To determine how WT1 affects c-myc expression in the context of breast cancer cells, we have examined the ability of both endogenous and exogenous WT1 proteins in breast cancer cells to bind to the c-myc promoter in vivo. Using c-myc-promoterdriven luciferase constructs, we found that different forms of WT1 could enhance the expression of the reporter. Unlike other studies where WT1 is reported to be a negative regulator of c-myc, we found that both the À and þ KTS forms of WT1 could act to enhance c-myc expression, depending on the cell type. The WT1-binding site near the second major transcription start site of the cmyc promoter was confirmed to be involved in upregulation of human c-myc by WT1. Finally, we demonstrated that overexpression of WT1 induced a significant increase in the abundance of endogenous c-myc protein in breast cancer cells, consistent with the upregulation of c-myc transcription following WT1 induction. These observations strongly argue that in the case of breast cancer WT1 is functioning as an oncogene in part by stimulating the expression of c-myc.
BackgroundThe aneurysm clip impact-compression model of spinal cord injury (SCI) is a standard injury model in animals that closely mimics the primary mechanism of most human injuries: acute impact and persisting compression. Its histo-pathological and behavioural outcomes are extensively similar to human SCI. To understand the distinct molecular events underlying this injury model we analyzed global mRNA abundance changes during the acute, subacute and chronic stages of a moderate to severe injury to the rat spinal cord.ResultsTime-series expression analyses resulted in clustering of the majority of deregulated transcripts into eight statistically significant expression profiles. Systematic application of Gene Ontology (GO) enrichment pathway analysis allowed inference of biological processes participating in SCI pathology. Temporal analysis identified events specific to and common between acute, subacute and chronic time-points. Processes common to all phases of injury include blood coagulation, cellular extravasation, leukocyte cell-cell adhesion, the integrin-mediated signaling pathway, cytokine production and secretion, neutrophil chemotaxis, phagocytosis, response to hypoxia and reactive oxygen species, angiogenesis, apoptosis, inflammatory processes and ossification. Importantly, various elements of adaptive and induced innate immune responses span, not only the acute and subacute phases, but also persist throughout the chronic phase of SCI. Induced innate responses, such as Toll-like receptor signaling, are more active during the acute phase but persist throughout the chronic phase. However, adaptive immune response processes such as B and T cell activation, proliferation, and migration, T cell differentiation, B and T cell receptor-mediated signaling, and B cell- and immunoglobulin-mediated immune response become more significant during the chronic phase.ConclusionsThis analysis showed that, surprisingly, the diverse series of molecular events that occur in the acute and subacute stages persist into the chronic stage of SCI. The strong agreement between our results and previous findings suggest that our analytical approach will be useful in revealing other biological processes and genes contributing to SCI pathology.
The antiestrogen tamoxifen has been used in the treatment of hormone-responsive breast cancer for over a decade. The loss of estrogen receptor (ER) expression is the most common mechanism for de novo antiestrogen resistance. Wilms' tumor 1 suppressor gene (WT1) is a clinically useful marker that is associated with poor prognosis in breast cancer patients; its high level expression is frequently observed in cases of breast cancer that are estrogen and progesterone receptor negative. The lack of expression of these receptors is characteristic of tumor cells that are not responsive to hormonal manipulation. To determine whether there is a linkage between WT1 expression and antiestrogen resistance in breast cancer cells, we studied the effect of WT1 on tamoxifen responsiveness in ERA-positive MCF-7 cells. We found that overexpression of WT1 in MCF-7 markedly abrogated tamoxifen-induced cell apoptosis and 17B-estradiol (E 2 ) -mediated cell proliferation. The expressions of ERA and its downstream target genes were significantly repressed following overexpression of WT1, whereas the down-regulation of WT1 by WT1 shRNA could enhance ERA expression and the sensitivity to tamoxifen treatment in ERA-negative MDA468 and HCC1954 cells that express high levels of WT1. Furthermore, we have confirmed that the WT1 protein can bind to endogenous WT1 consensus sites in the proximal promoter of ERA and thus inhibit the transcriptional activity of the ERA promoter in a WT1 site sequence -specific manner. Our study clearly implicates WT1 as a mediator of antiestrogen resistance in breast cancer through down-regulation of ERA expression and supports the development of WT1 inhibitors as a potential means of restoring antiestrogen responsiveness in breast cancer therapy.
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