Myeloma Unit, Department of Clinical and Experimental Medicine, University of Parma, Parma, Italy.
'Laboratorio di Oncologia', Istituto Giannina Gaslini, Genova, Italy.
Leukemia. 2016 Dec;30(12):2351-2363. doi: 10.1038/leu.2016.137. Epub 2016 May 20.
Galectin-1 (Gal-1) is involved in tumoral angiogenesis, hypoxia and metastases. Actually the Gal-1 expression profile in multiple myeloma (MM) patients and its pathophysiological role in MM-induced angiogenesis and tumoral growth are unknown. In this study, we found that Gal-1 expression by MM cells was upregulated in hypoxic conditions and that stable knockdown of hypoxia inducible factor-1α significantly downregulated its expression. Therefore, we performed Gal-1 inhibition using lentivirus transfection of shRNA anti-Gal-1 in human myeloma cell lines (HMCLs), and showed that its suppression modified transcriptional profiles in both hypoxic and normoxic conditions. Interestingly, Gal-1 inhibition in MM cells downregulated proangiogenic genes, including MMP9 and CCL2, and upregulated the antiangiogenic ones SEMA3A and CXCL10. Consistently, Gal-1 suppression in MM cells significantly decreased their proangiogenic properties in vitro. This was confirmed in vivo, in two different mouse models injected with HMCLs transfected with anti-Gal-1 shRNA or the control vector. Gal-1 suppression in both models significantly reduced tumor burden and microvascular density as compared with the control mice. Moreover, Gal-1 suppression induced smaller lytic lesions on X-ray in the intratibial model. Overall, our data indicate that Gal-1 is a new potential therapeutic target in MM blocking angiogenesis.
半乳糖凝集素-1(Gal-1)参与肿瘤血管生成、缺氧和转移。实际上,多发性骨髓瘤(MM)患者中 Gal-1 的表达谱及其在 MM 诱导的血管生成和肿瘤生长中的病理生理作用尚不清楚。在这项研究中,我们发现 MM 细胞在缺氧条件下上调 Gal-1 的表达,而稳定敲低缺氧诱导因子-1α(hypoxia inducible factor-1α,HIF-1α)则显著下调其表达。因此,我们使用慢病毒转染 shRNA 抗 Gal-1 对人骨髓瘤细胞系(HMCLs)进行 Gal-1 抑制,结果表明其抑制作用改变了低氧和常氧条件下的转录谱。有趣的是,MM 细胞中 Gal-1 的抑制下调了促血管生成基因,包括 MMP9 和 CCL2,并上调了抗血管生成基因 SEMA3A 和 CXCL10。一致地,MM 细胞中 Gal-1 的抑制显著降低了它们在体外的促血管生成特性。这在两种不同的注射转染了抗 Gal-1 shRNA 或对照载体的 HMCLs 的小鼠模型中得到了证实。与对照组小鼠相比,两种模型中 Gal-1 的抑制均显著降低了肿瘤负担和微血管密度。此外,Gal-1 抑制在胫骨内模型中诱导 X 光下更小的溶骨性病变。总的来说,我们的数据表明 Gal-1 是阻断血管生成的 MM 的一个新的潜在治疗靶点。