Dexrazoxane inhibits the growth of esophageal squamous cell carcinoma by attenuating SDCBP/MDA-9/syntenin-mediated EGFR-PI3K-Akt pathway activation.

Syndecan-binding protein (SDCBP) was reported to stimulate the advancement of esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) and could potentially be a target for ESCC treatment. There is a growing corpus of research on the anti-tumor effects of iron chelators; however, very few studies have addressed the involvement of dexrazoxane in cancer. In this study, structure-based virtual screening was employed to select drugs targeting SDCBP from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved drug databases. The sepharose 4B beads pull-down assay revealed that dexrazoxane targeted SDCBP by interacting with its PDZ1 domain. Additionally, dexrazoxane inhibited ESCC cell proliferation and anchorage-independent colony formation via SDCBP. ESCC cell apoptosis and G2 phase arrest were induced as measured by the flow cytometry assay. Subsequent research revealed that dexrazoxane attenuated the binding ability between SDCBP and EGFR in an immunoprecipitation assay. Furthermore, dexrazoxane impaired EGFR membrane localization and inactivated the EGFR/PI3K/Akt pathway. In vivo, xenograft mouse experiments indicated that dexrazoxane suppressed ESCC tumor growth. These data indicate that dexrazoxane might be established as a potential anti-cancer agent in ESCC by targeting SDCBP.