División de Investigación Básica, Instituto Nacional de Cancerología, México.
Int J Oncol. 2011 Dec;39(6):1491-9. doi: 10.3892/ijo.2011.1144. Epub 2011 Jul 26.
Natural killer cells play a role in the immune antitumor response by recognizing and eliminating tumor cells through the engagement of NKG2D receptors with their ligands on target cells. This work aimed to investigate whether epigenetic drugs are able to increase MICA and MICB expression as well as NK cell cytotoxicity. Prostate, colon, breast and cervical cancer cell lines were analyzed for the expression of MICA and MICB at the mRNA and protein levels by RT-PCR, Western blot, flow cytometry and ELISA. The activating mark H3K4m2 at the MICA and MICB promoters was investigated by ChIP assays. Cytotoxicity of NK cells against the target epithelial cancer cells was investigated with the CD107 cytotoxicity assay. The results show that hydralazine and valproic acid not only increase the expression of MICA and MICB ligands of target cells, but also reduce their shedding to the supernatant. This upregulation occurs at the transcriptional level as revealed by increase of the H3K4 activating mark at the promoter of MICA and MICB genes. These effects are paralleled by increased cytotoxicity of NK cells, which was attenuated at different degrees by using blocking antibodies against the NKG2D receptor and ligands. In conclusion, our results demonstrate the ability of hydralazine and valproate to increase the NK activity against epithelial cancer cell lines and suggest that these drugs could reduce the levels of soluble MICA and MICB helping in avoiding tumor-induced suppression of NK cytotoxicity against the tumor.
自然杀伤细胞通过识别和消除肿瘤细胞,通过 NKG2D 受体与靶细胞上的配体结合发挥免疫抗肿瘤反应的作用。这项工作旨在研究表观遗传药物是否能够增加 MICA 和 MICB 的表达以及 NK 细胞的细胞毒性。通过 RT-PCR、Western blot、流式细胞术和 ELISA 分析前列腺、结肠、乳腺和宫颈癌细胞系中 MICA 和 MICB 的 mRNA 和蛋白水平的表达。通过 ChIP 分析研究 MICA 和 MICB 启动子处的激活标记 H3K4m2。通过 CD107 细胞毒性测定法研究 NK 细胞对靶上皮癌细胞的细胞毒性。结果表明,肼屈嗪和丙戊酸不仅增加了靶细胞的 MICA 和 MICB 配体的表达,而且减少了它们向上清液中的脱落。这一上调发生在转录水平上,表现为 MICA 和 MICB 基因启动子处 H3K4 激活标记的增加。这些效应伴随着 NK 细胞细胞毒性的增加,用针对 NKG2D 受体和配体的阻断抗体不同程度地减弱了这种效应。总之,我们的结果表明肼屈嗪和丙戊酸能够增加 NK 对上皮癌细胞系的活性,并表明这些药物可以降低可溶性 MICA 和 MICB 的水平,有助于避免肿瘤诱导的 NK 细胞对肿瘤的细胞毒性抑制。