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1 Discovery Oncology, Roche Research Center, Hoffmann-La Roche Inc., Nutley, NJ, 2 Centre for Immunology, St. Vincent's Hospital and University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, Australia
Requests for reprints:Lyubomir T. Vassilev, Discovery Oncology, Roche Research Center, Hoffmann-La Roche Inc., 340 Kingsland Street, Nutley, NJ 07110. Phone: (973) 235-8106; Fax: (973) 235-6185. E-mail: lyubomir.vassilev{at}roche.com
| Abstract |
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| Introduction |
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The consequences of p53 pathway activation have suggested that it could offer a novel approach to cancer therapy and substantial experimental efforts have been directed toward the discovery of pharmacological activators of p53 (8). In general, the strategies have been aimed at restoring the transcriptional activity of mutant p53 protein (9), reintroducing wild-type p53 by gene therapy (10), or activating the p53 pathway in cancer cells with wild-type p53 by blocking its MDM2-mediated degradation (1113). All strategies for development of p53-based therapeutics can benefit significantly from a reliable molecular marker of p53 pathway activation. The cyclin-dependent kinase inhibitor p21Waf1/Cip1 has been considered best suited for this purpose, as p21 is positioned immediately downstream of p53 and mediates cell cycle arrest (14, 15). However, p21 is not secreted, thus necessitating mRNA or protein isolation from cell lysates for analysis, techniques unsuitable or very cumbersome for a larger-scale screening. This is especially challenging if p53 activation is to be followed in animal models of human cancer. The recently cloned member of the transforming growth factor-ß (TGF-ß) superfamily, macrophage inhibitory cytokine-1 (MIC-1), which is secreted and powerfully induced by p53, suggests an alternate strategy.
MIC-1 is a divergent member of the TGF-ß superfamily originally identified based on increased mRNA expression associated with macrophage activation (16). It has subsequently been reported under a wide variety of other names, including prostate-derived factor (17), growth/differentiation factor-15 (1820), and placental TGF-ß (21, 22). The major function of this protein is still uncertain, but it has been suggested to have a number of different roles (16, 17, 2325) including growth inhibition (26) and induction of apoptosis in epithelial and other tumor cell lines (21, 22). A sensitive, species-specific ELISA for human MIC-1 (hMIC-1) has also been developed and has made it possible to measure MIC-1 levels in serum. MIC-1 can be detected in the serum of all individuals and increases dramatically in pregnancy (27), and more modest increases have been linked to an elevated risk for developing stroke and myocardial infarction (28).
The MIC-1 promoter contains two consensus p53-binding sites and can be activated by the tumor suppressor in vitro (21, 22). It is activated by wild-type p53 but not by the transcriptionally inactive mutant p53 (21). MIC-1 is expressed and secreted in cells with wild-type p53 but not in cancer cell lines with mutant p53 status (21). Consequently, it has been postulated that MIC-1 acts as a p53 pathway mediator and induces growth arrest and apoptosis by a paracrine mechanism (21, 22).
In this report, we show that MIC-1 induction and secretion in response to p53 activation is comparable with p21 induction and can serve as a secreted biomarker for activation of the p53 pathway in both in vitro and in vivo models of human cancer.
| Materials and Methods |
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Quantitative PCR
Tumor tissues (0.10.5 g) were homogenized in a Polytron PT3100 high-speed tissue disintegrator and the total RNA fraction was isolated using the Ultraspec RNA kit (Biotecx, Houston, TX) following the manufacturer's instructions. Aliquots containing 5-µg total RNA were used to generate cDNA using the TaqMan Reverse Transcription Reagents Kit (Applied Biosystems, Foster City, CA). For determination of p21 and MIC-1 gene expression, cells were seeded in 96-well plates (104 cells/well) 24 h before doxorubicin treatment. Cells were lysed and total RNA was isolated using the ABI 6700 robotic workstation (Applied Biosystems) and converted to cDNA as described above. The relative quantity of transcripts was determined by real-time PCR using p21-specific (forward: CTGAGACTCTCAGGGTCGAA, reverse: CGGCGTTTGGAGTGGTAGAA, probe: TTGGCTCACTGCAAGCTCGCCCTT) and MIC-1-specific (forward: CCATGGTGCTCATTCAAAAGAC, reverse: GGAAGGACCAGGACTGCTCAT, probe: TGACTTGTTAGCCAAAGACTGCCACTGCA) primers and the TaqMan Gold RT-PCT Kit in the Applied Biosystems 9700 thermocycler. The expression of p21 and MIC-1 genes was normalized to 18S rRNA using probes and primers from Applied Biosystems.
In Vivo Studies
Athymic nude mice (Nu/Nu-nuBR, 68-week-old female) were purchased from Charles River Laboratories (Wilmington, MA). HCT116 (3 x 106), H460a (5 x 106), and MDA-MB-435 (5 x 106) cells in 0.2-ml PBS were injected s.c. Tumor volumes were measured and calculated as described previously (29). Mice were bled by cardiac puncture or retro-orbital bleeding. Blood plasma was collected and kept at -80°C. Drug treatment begun after establishing a s.c. tumor averaging 100300 mm3 in size. Mice were randomized in two experimental groups (vehicle and drug treated). Doxorubicin was suspended in 0.9% sterile saline and formulated at appropriate concentrations to allow the required dose (10 mg/kg/mouse) to be achieved with administration of 0.2-ml doxorubicin (10 mg/kg) and the vehicle (0.9% saline) were administered i.v. via the caudal tail vein. In the doxorubicin experiment, the animals were bled (5 mice/time point) via cardiac puncture at 8, 24, 48, and 72 h (HCT116) or 24 h only (H460a and MDA-MB-435) after drug treatment.
| Results |
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Treatment of exponentially growing HCT116 cells with doxorubicin for 24 h showed a dose-dependent elevation of p53, p21, and MIC-1 proteins (Fig. 1A ). The most effective doxorubicin concentration tested (1 µM) suppressed the growth of the cells but did not cause extensive cell death for up to 48 h. Using this concentration, we treated HCT116 cells and followed the accumulation of cellular p53, p21, and MIC-1 by Western blotting (Fig. 1A) and the level of MIC-1 secreted in the tissue culture media by sandwich ELISA (Fig. 1B). Results revealed a significant p53 accumulation 8 h after drug treatment, reaching a maximum at 24 h. The levels of p21 and MIC-1 increased with a delay of several hours, consistent with their role as downstream targets of activated p53. As expected, with the elevated expression of MIC-1 in cells, levels of secreted MIC-1 increased significantly after 24 h of drug treatment, reaching nearly 8-fold over the baseline concentration at 32 h (Fig. 1B). The noticeable drop in the relative level of the secreted protein was due to an increase in the release of MIC-1 from untreated cells and not to an absolute decrease of MIC-1 secretion from the treated cells. This most likely reflected stress-related p53 activation and/or increase in the number of dead or dying cells in the control cultures. While doxorubicin-treated cells were growth arrested due to the activation of the p53 pathway and were kept subconfluent, control cells continued to grow, leading to nutrient depletion.
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4-fold at 1 µM) in close correlation with the increase in MIC-1 gene expression. As shown earlier, MIC-1 gene expression correlated well with p21 expression in response to drug treatment. These results suggested strongly that MIC-1 expression and secretion can serve as an indicator of p53 activation in HCT116 cells. To expand our observation with HCT116 cells and further validate the p53-dependent nature of MIC-1 activation, we selected five additional cancer cell lines with different p53 status: two with wild-type p53 (MCF7 and H460a), two with mutant p53 (MDA-MB-435 and PC3), and the p53-null cell line H1299. Exponentially growing cells were treated with a range of doxorubicin concentrations for 20 h and the expression of p21 and MIC-1 genes was followed by real-time PCR. In agreement with our HCT116 results, MIC-1 gene was found activated in a dose-dependent manner only in the cells with wild-type p53 but not in cells with mutant or deleted p53 gene (Fig. 1D). In comparison, p21 gene expression was elevated in all tested cells, thus suggesting that in addition to being a transcriptional target of p53, p21 can be activated by a p53-independent mechanism. Activation of the p53 pathway by doxorubicin, followed by a release of MIC-1 in the culture media as estimated by Western analysis, was observed also in RKO and H460a cells with wild-type p53 but not in the mutant p53 breast cancer cell line MDA-MB-435 (data not shown). These experiments confirmed and expanded previous observations that cancer cells with wild-type p53 respond to genotoxic insult by significant elevation of the cellular MIC-1 protein. Because the induction of MIC-1 is likely to be primarily due to activation of its transcription by p53, the level of secreted MIC-1 can serve as a marker for the intracellular level of active wild-type p53 protein.
Macrophage Inhibitory Cytokine-1 Plasma Levels Correlate with Tumor Volume in Mouse Xenograft Models
The fact that cancer cells with wild-type p53 release MIC-1 in the culture media and significantly elevate its level in response to p53 activation offers the possibility of using MIC-1 as a biomarker of both tumor mass and p53 pathway activation in human cancer xenograft models. To validate this hypothesis, we measured the plasma levels of MIC-1 in 50 nude mice bearing s.c. HCT116 xenografts that varied in size between 100 and 3000 mm3. The data demonstrated a good correlation between tumor xenograft volume and plasma levels of hMIC-1, with a correlation coefficient of 0.89 (Fig. 2A
). The plasma level of hMIC-1 (1.01.5 pg/ml/mm3 of tumor) was lower than the MIC-1 found in tissue culture media of doxorubicin-treated cells (200400 pg/ml/106 cells) but well above the detection limit of the sandwich ELISA (510 pg/ml). A smaller group of nine animals with H460a lung tumor xenografts showed similar correlation between MIC-1 and tumor volume (r = 0.94), but the relative hMIC-1 level was 34-fold lower (Fig. 2B). The lower plasma level of MIC-1 in the H460a xenograft model compared with HCT116 model correlated well with the 3-fold lower basal expression of the MIC-1 gene determined in the untreated control cells by PCR (see Fig. 1, B and C; data not shown).
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Although our cell-based data were fully consistent with a p53-dependent mechanism of MIC-1 activation and secretion, one cannot exclude the possibility that an unknown p53-independent mechanism triggered by doxorubicin in vivo could contribute to the elevated MIC-1. To address this possibility, we chose one of the mutant p53 cell lines, MDA-MB-435, which has a transcriptionally inactive mutant p53 and did not respond to doxorubicin by MIC-1 induction (Fig. 1D). Nude mice carrying established MDA-MB-435 xenografts (100400 mm3) received a single dose of doxorubicin (10 mg/kg) and the level of MIC-1 in the plasma was analyzed 24 h later. The basal level of MIC-1 (vehicle control) was found below the detection limit of the ELISA (10 pg/ml) and remained below the limit after doxorubicin treatment. This result indicated that under our experimental conditions, doxorubicin is not able to produce significant p53-independent elevation of hMIC-1 in mouse plasma. Therefore, we concluded that secreted hMIC-1 reflected p53 pathway activation in the xenograft tumors.
| Discussion |
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MIC-1 is the only known secreted p53-regulated gene, which is expressed strongly in the presence of active p53 (21, 22). The secretion of MIC-1 by cells with wild-type p53 correlates closely with the expression of p21, a well-recognized marker of p53 pathway activation. The accumulation of p53 in HCT116 cells in response to doxorubicin-induced DNA damage was followed closely by activation of both p21 and MIC-1 gene expression (Fig. 1, AC), supporting the notion that, similar to p21, MIC-1 is positioned immediately downstream of p53 in the pathway. The induction of MIC-1 gene expression was followed very closely by increased protein secretion (Fig. 1B), suggesting that secreted MIC-1 can be used as a quantitative indicator of p53 pathway activation. Consequently, the availability of a sensitive assay for MIC-1 quantitation represents an important tool for investigation of this pathway in numerous experimental models.
Several lines of evidence suggest that the activation of MIC-1 in tumor cells is dependent solely on the presence of transcriptionally active p53 protein and is not a p53-independent mechanism. First, MIC-1 promoter contains p53-binding sequences and can be activated by wild-type p53 in vitro and in vivo (21, 22). Second, activation of MIC-1 expression has been observed only in cells with wild-type p53 but not in cells with transcriptionally inactive mutant p53 (21, 22). In this study, we have extended this observation by adding seven more cell lines with either wild-type or mutant p53. In all cell lines examined so far (21, 22; this study), MIC-1 expression has been found activated only in the presence of wild-type p53 but not of mutant p53, with the exception of mutant p53-218G (21). Third, nearly identical up-regulation of MIC-1 and p21, a well-characterized p53 response gene, in doxorubicin-treated HCT116 cells (Fig. 1) indicates a common transcriptional activator. Taken together, the data strongly suggest that MIC-1 is a p53-regulated gene and its expression and secretion can serve as a marker for activation of the p53 pathway. In this role, MIC-1 appears to offer better specificity for the p53 pathway than p21, which was activated by doxorubicin in a p53-independent manner (Fig. 1D).
Measurement of tumor-derived MIC-1 in the blood of mice bearing human xenografts offers a new in vivo tool with wide applicability in the preclinical development of cancer therapeutics, as it is secreted in large amounts by tumors, especially of epithelial origin. MIC-1 can be used as a tumor burden marker, and most importantly, it can also be used to assess therapies directed at p53 pathway activation. It allows for rapid (within 24 h) determination of the ability of novel therapeutic molecules to penetrate tumor xenografts and activate the p53 pathway. Determination of MIC-1 secretion is also likely to be useful in models where cells having mutant p53 have the wild-type protein reintroduced by gene therapy (10) or restored through modulation of the p53 conformation (9). Furthermore, it is not limited to s.c. tumor xenografts but can be used as well in metastatic models of human cancer where tumor sampling represents a significant challenge. Most cytotoxic drugs currently used in the clinic or in development can activate p53 as a result of primary genotoxic activity (e.g., doxorubicin) or by causing cellular stress; therefore, their activity can be assessed using MIC-1 as a pharmacodynamic biomarker both in vitro and in vivo.
| Acknowledgments |
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| Footnotes |
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Grant Support:National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia; St. Vincent's Hospital, Sydney; Meriton Apartments Pty Ltd. through an R&D syndicate arranged by Macquarie Bank Limited; and New South Wales Health Research and Development Infrastructure.
Received 3/13/03; revised 7/25/03; accepted 7/31/03.
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