Department of Pharmacology, School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Shandong University, 44 West Wenhua Road, Jinan 250012, Shandong Province, China.
Department of Pharmacology, School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Shandong University, 44 West Wenhua Road, Jinan 250012, Shandong Province, China.
Biomed Pharmacother. 2017 Dec;96:982-992. doi: 10.1016/j.biopha.2017.11.137. Epub 2017 Dec 6.
Breast cancer is one of the most serious malignant tumors that harm to women's health. Vasculogenic mimicry (VM) is an alternative type of blood supplement independent of endothelial vessels, which refers to the formation of tumor cell-lined vessels and is associated with tumor invasion, metastasis and poor cancer patient prognosis. Prior antiangiogenic therapy just focused on vascular endothelial cells and did not significantly affect VM. DMBT, 6, 6'-bis (2, 3-dimethoxybenzoyl)-a, a-D-trehalose, has shown to have multiple anti-tumor invasion and metastasis activities; however the exact mechanism is not thoroughly elucidated. In this study, we examined key molecular mechanisms underlying VM by using breast cancer cells MDA-MB-231 and MCF-7. We found that following the hypoxia treatment, the cells were easily to form VM networks and DMBT could inhibit VM formation of both MDA-MB-231 and MCF-7 cells in hypoxic condition. When tumor cells exposed to hypoxia environment, the expression of VM related proteins such as HIF-1α, VE-cadherin, MMP-9, Cdc42, and EGFR, p-Akt, p-mTOR were increased but decreased when exposed to hypoxia medium with DMBT. In MDA-MB-231 cells, DMBT inhibit hypoxia-induced VM by suppress HIF-1α/VE-cadherin/MMPs signaling pathway and in MCF-7 cells, DMBT had little effect on HIF-1α or VE-cadherin but could inhibit cell autophagy to suppress VM formation. These results suggested that DMBT could serve as a therapeutic agent to inhibit VM formation in human breast cancer.
乳腺癌是危害女性健康的最严重的恶性肿瘤之一。血管生成拟态(VM)是一种独立于内皮血管的替代类型的血液补充,它指的是肿瘤细胞排列的血管形成,与肿瘤侵袭、转移和癌症患者预后不良有关。先前的抗血管生成治疗仅仅集中在血管内皮细胞上,并没有显著影响 VM。6,6'-双(2,3-二甲氧基苯甲酰基)-α,α-海藻糖(DMBT)已被证明具有多种抗肿瘤侵袭和转移的活性;然而,确切的机制尚未完全阐明。在这项研究中,我们使用乳腺癌细胞 MDA-MB-231 和 MCF-7 来研究 VM 的关键分子机制。我们发现,在缺氧处理后,细胞很容易形成 VM 网络,而 DMBT 可以抑制缺氧条件下 MDA-MB-231 和 MCF-7 细胞的 VM 形成。当肿瘤细胞暴露于缺氧环境时,VM 相关蛋白如 HIF-1α、VE-钙粘蛋白、MMP-9、Cdc42 和 EGFR、p-Akt、p-mTOR 的表达增加,但当暴露于含 DMBT 的缺氧培养基时,其表达降低。在 MDA-MB-231 细胞中,DMBT 通过抑制 HIF-1α/VE-钙粘蛋白/MMPs 信号通路抑制缺氧诱导的 VM,而在 MCF-7 细胞中,DMBT 对 HIF-1α 或 VE-钙粘蛋白几乎没有影响,但可以抑制细胞自噬来抑制 VM 形成。这些结果表明,DMBT 可以作为一种治疗剂,抑制人乳腺癌中 VM 的形成。