Lidia A. Laletina

Introduction. Carfilzomib (CFZ) is a second-generation proteasome inhibitor and serves as a constant component of multiple myeloma recurrence therapy. However, the mechanisms of development of resistance to CFZ have not been sufficiently studied. Aim. To investigate the mechanisms of development of CFZ resistance in multiple myeloma cells. Materials and methods. The study was performed in 2 multiple myeloma cell lines: АМО-1 and its CFZ-resistant subline АМО-1/CFZ. Cytotoxicity of the compounds was evaluated using the MTT assay, gene expression levels using real-time polymerase chain reaction. To evaluate protein expression, flow cytometry and western blot were used. Protein location was determined using immunocytochemistry, interaction with P-glycoprotein (P-gp) was evaluated using rhodamine accumulation assay. Results. We have obtained a cell subline АМО-1/CFZ which was 46-fold more resistant to CFZ than initial cell line АМО-1. Genes of proteasome subunits did not change significantly compared to АМО-1. We have determined that CFZ is a substrate for P-gp and promotes its expression at the levels of messenger RNA and protein. Concurrent treatment of АМО-1/CFZ cells with nontoxic concentrations of P-gp inhibitor elacridar and CFZ led to complete restoration of sensitivity to this proteasome inhibitor. Activity of YB-1 protein, one of the possible transcription factors of P-gp, did not change in the resistant subline АМО-1/CFZ. Conclusion. Therefore, P-gp hyperexpression mediates CFZ resistance in АМО-1/CFZ cells. However, molecular mechanisms leading to P-gp hyperexpression remain unknown.

Carfilzomib (CFZ) is a cornerstone in the treatment of relapsed multiple myeloma (MM). However, its efficacy is limited by resistance mediated by the overexpression of the ABC-transporter P-glycoprotein (P-gp). The signaling pathways driving the emergence of P-gp in MM remain unclear. To investigate this, we generated CFZ-resistant AMO-1/CFZ cells with P-gp overexpression by long-term selection. RNA sequencing of control AMO-1 and AMO-1/CFZ, sorted into two subpopulations, P-gp HIGH and P-gp LOW, implicated the Ras/MEK/ERK pathway as the most likely signaling cascade involved in P-gp upregulation. We therefore evaluated two clinically used MAPK pathway inhibitors, cobimetinib and ulixertinib, for their ability to re-sensitize AMO-1/CFZ cells to CFZ. Co-administration at non-toxic concentrations enhanced sensitivity 5-fold with cobimetinib and 17-fold with ulixertinib. Analysis of the combined MTT assay results, rhodamine efflux experiments, molecular docking, and Western blotting revealed distinct actions. Ulixertinib primarily functions as a potent direct P-gp inhibitor. Conversely, non-toxic concentrations of cobimetinib sensitizes cells by suppressing MAPK signaling, though it also exhibits P-gp inhibition at higher concentrations. At the IC₅₀ concentration, both inhibitors reduced P-gp expression. In conclusion, combining CFZ with MAPK pathway inhibitors like cobimetinib or ulixertinib represents a promising strategy to overcome P-gp-mediated resistance in MM.

The development of new, more effective, and selective anticancer agents is one of the most important tasks of modern medicinal chemistry. Recently, we have found that non-classical Pd(II) pincer complexes derived from thiophosphoryl-appended picolinamides exhibit promising cytotoxic properties. In this work, the potential of this class of metal-based derivatives was studied on an extended family of Pd(II) complexes with a deprotonated amide core featuring thiophosphoryl pendant arms, readily obtained by the direct cyclopalladation of new functionalized amide ligands upon interaction with PdCl₂(NCPh)₂ under mild conditions. The ligands, in turn, were obtained by conventional amide coupling methods using (aminobenzyl)- and (aminomethyl)diphenylphosphine sulfides as the key precursors and different N- and S-donor-substituted carboxylic acids. The effect of an acid component and carbon chirality in the ligand framework on the bioactivity of the resulting Pd(II) pincer complexes was elucidated by evaluating their cytotoxicity against different solid and blood cancer cell lines, apoptosis induction ability, and P-glycoprotein (P-gp) affinity, which revealed the high anticancer potential of some of them, and in particular, the potential to overcome drug resistance associated with P-gp overexpression. The representative palladocycle was also shown to possess moderate antibacterial activity.

Oleanane aldehyde-β-enone (OA), being the semi-synthetic derivative of the triterpenoid betulin, effectively inhibits the proliferation of HBL-100 and K562 cancer cells (IC₅₀ 0.47–0.53 µM), as well as the proliferation of their resistant subclones with high P-gp expression HBL-100/Dox, K562/i-S9 and K562/i-S9_Dox (IC₅₀ 0.45−1.24 µM). A molecular docking study, rhodamine efflux test, synergistic test with Dox, and ABC transporter gene expression were used to investigate the ability of OA to act as a P-gp substrate or inhibitor against Dox-resistant cells. We noted a trend toward a decrease in ABCB1, ABCC1 and ABCG2 expression in HBL-100 cells treated with OA. The in silico and in vitro methods suggested that OA is neither a direct inhibitor nor a competitive substrate of P-gp in overexpressing P-gp cancer cells. Thus, OA is able to overcome cellular resistance and can accumulate in Dox-resistant cells to realize toxic effects. The set of experiments suggested that OA toxic action can be attributed to activating intrinsic/extrinsic or only intrinsic apoptosis pathways in Dox-sensitive and Dox-resistant cancer cells, respectively. The cytotoxicity of OA in resistant cells is likely mediated by a mitochondrial cell death pathway, as demonstrated by positive staining with Annexin V–FITC, an increasing number of cells in the subG0/G1 phase, reactive oxygen species generation, mitochondrial dysfunction, cytochrome c migration and caspases-9,-6 activation.

Introduction. The identification of predictive factors is a cornerstone task of modern oncology. The development of new targeted drugs determines the need for prediction of chemosensitivity of each patient to the prescribed therapy, in this regard, the search for biomarkers of predictive response to therapy is actively conducted.The study objective to investigate the relationship between tumor cell resistance and the expression levels of CA IX (carbonic anhydrase IX) and VEGF A (vascular endothelial growth factor А) in patient-derived cultures of soft tissue sarcomas.Materials and methods: ex vivo soft tissue sarcoma cell culture, resazurin test, immunoblotting.Results. We obtained 46 ex vivo samples of soft tissue sarcoma cultures for which chemosensitivity to doxorubicin, ifosfamide, docetaxel, gemcitabine, and their combinations was assessed by the resazurin cytotoxicity test. We analyzed the relationship between the expression of hypoxic proteins VEGF A and CA IX and the resistance to drugs. A correlation between the CA IX expression in hypoxia and cell resistance to ifosfamide and its combination with doxorubicin was found. Soft tissue sarcomas with high VEGF A index were resistant to doxorubicin, docetaxel, and its combination with gemcitabine (p 0.05).Conclusion. The data obtained on patient-derived cultures indicate the relationship between hypoxic signaling and resistance of soft tissue sarcomas to chemotherapeutics.

Soft tissue sarcomas (STS) are heterogeneous cancers with more than 100 histological subtypes, different in molecular alterations, which make its personalized therapy very complex. Gold standard of chemotherapy for advanced STS includes combinations of Doxorubicin and Ifosfamide or Gemcitabine and Docetaxel. Chemotherapy is efficient for less than 50% of patients and it is followed by a fast development of drug resistance. Our study was directed to the search of genetic alterations in cancer cells associated with chemoresistance of undifferentiated pleomorphic and synovial sarcomas to the abovementioned genotoxic drugs. We analyzed chemoresistance of cancer cells in vitro using primary STS cultures and performed genetic analysis for the components of apoptotic signaling. In 27% of tumors, we revealed alterations in TP53, ATM, PIK3CB, PIK3R1, NTRK1, and CSF2RB. Cells from STS specimens with found genetic alterations were resistant to Dox, excluding the only one case when TP53 mutation resulted in the substitution Leu344Arg associated with partial oligomerization loss and did not cause total loss of TP53 function. Significant association between alterations in the components of apoptosis signaling and chemoresistance to Dox was found. Our data are important to elaborate further the therapeutic strategy for STS patients with alterations in apoptotic signaling.

In the present study, natural phaeosphaeride A (PPA) derivatives are synthesized. Anti-tumor studies are carried out on the PC3, K562, HCT-116, THP-1, MCF-7, A549, NCI-H929, Jurkat, and RPMI8226 tumor cell lines, and on the human embryonic kidney (HEK293) cell line. All the compounds synthesized turned out to have better efficacy than PPA towards the tumor cell lines listed. Among them, three compounds exhibited an ability to overcome the drug resistance of tumor cells associated with the overexpression of the P-glycoprotein by modulating the work of this transporter. Luminex xMAP technology was used to assess the effect of five synthesized compounds on the activation of intracellular kinase cascades in A431 cells. MILLIPLEX MAP Multi-Pathway Magnetic Bead 9-Plex was used, which allowed for the simultaneous detection of the following nine phosphorylated protein markers of the main intracellular signaling pathways: a universal transcription factor that controls the expression of immune-response genes, apoptosis and cell cycle NFκB (pS536); cAMP-dependent transcription factor (CREB (pS133); mitogen-activated kinase p38 (pT180/pY182); stress-activated protein kinase JNK (pT183/pY185); ribosomal SK; transcription factors STAT3 (pS727) and STAT5A/B (pY694/699); protein kinase B (Akt) (pS473); and kinase regulated by extracellular signals ERK1/2 (pT185/pY187). The effect of various concentrations of PPA derivatives on the cell culture was studied using xCelligence RTCA equipment. The compounds were found to modulate JNK, ERK1/2, and p38 signaling pathways. The set of activated kinase cascades suggests that oxidative stress is the main probable mechanism of the toxic action of PPA derivatives.

Chemotherapy of soft tissue sarcomas (STS) is restricted by low chemosensitivity and multiple drug resistance (MDR). The purpose of our study was the analysis of MDR mechanism in different types of STS. We assessed the expression of ABC-transporters, MVP, YB-1, and analyzed their correlation with chemosensitivity of cancer cells. STS specimens were obtained from 70 patients without metastatic disease (2018–2020). Expression level of MDR-associated genes was estimated by qRT-PCR and cytofluorimetry. Mutations in ABC-transporter genes were captured by exome sequencing. Chemosensitivity (SI) of STS to doxorubicin (Dox), ifosfamide (Ifo), gemcitabine (Gem), and docetaxel (Doc) was analyzed in vitro. We found strong correlation in ABCB1, ABCC1, and ABCG2 expression. We demonstrated strong negative correlations in ABCB1 and ABCG2 expression with SI (Doc) and SI (Doc + Gem), and positive correlation of MVP expression with SI (Doc) and SI (Doc + Gem) in undifferentiated pleomorphic sarcoma. Pgp expression was shown in 5 out of 44 STS samples with prevalence of synovial sarcoma relapses and it is strongly correlated with SI (Gem). Mutations in MDR-associated genes were rarely found. Overall, STS demonstrated high heterogeneity in chemosensitivity that makes reasonable in vitro chemosensitivity testing to improve personalized STS therapy, and classic ABC-transporters are not obviously involved in MDR appearance.

Objective of the study. In our work we investigated the effect of pre-existing drug resistance by the mechanism of activation of ABC transporters – P-glycoprotein (Pgp) overexpression – on the development of resistance to the proteasome inhibitor bortezomib.Materials and methods. Cultures RPMI8226 and K562 / i-S9 (with Pgp overexpression) and their bortezomib-resistant sublines RPMI8226 / btz-6 and K562 / i-S9vlc were used as models. The methods used were MTT test, flow cytometry, Western blot and real-time polymerase chain reaction using the Human Signal Transduction Pathway Finder system.Results. The expression of the main PI3K-AKT and NF-κB signaling pathways did not change in RPMI8226 / btz-6 subline cells. However, AKT kinase expression was significantly increased and PTEN protein expression was reduced in K562 / i-S9vlc cells with Pgp-overexpression. Significant changes in gene expression (42 %) were found in RPMI8226 / btz-6 cells related to a number of main signaling pathways in the tumor cell, namely: activation of 3–4 genes in signaling pathways related to hypoxia, oxidative stress, PPAR and p53. The highest activation in these cells was found in the TGFβ signaling pathway. In resistant K562 / i-S9vlc cells, expression of only 5 genes (10 %) increased: Fas, HMOX1, CPT2, ICAM, and SOCS3. Three genes were also identified that changed in both resistant sublines: Fas, HMOX1 and CPT2. Further, we showed that in the RPMI8226 / btz-6 subline, along with changes in the expression of signal transduction genes, there is a large pool of CD138-negative cells, and in the K562 / i-S9vlc subline, the number of cells expressing CD34 increases and the number of CD13 decreases.Conclusion. We found that different signaling pathways are involved in the formation of resistance to bortezomib in the absence of Pgp expression and its overexpression. In addition, a cell line without activated resistance pathways requires more extensive rearrangements in the signal system to acquire resistance to bortezomib. However, in both cases, bortezomib leads to a change in the immunophenotype of the cells – to the appearance of dedifferentiated subpopulations.

Роль АВС-транспортеров в формировании лекарственной устойчивости к бортезомибу при множественной миеломе