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Merkel cell carcinoma (MCC) is a highly aggressive skin cancer with an increasing incidence. The understanding of the molecular carcinogenesis of MCC is limited. Here, we scrutinized the PI3K/AKT pathway, one of the major pathways activated in human cancer, in MCC. Immunohistochemical analysis of 41 tumor tissues and 9 MCC cell lines revealed high levels of AKT phosphorylation at threonine 308 in 88% of samples. Notably, the AKT phosphorylation was not correlated with the presence or absence of the Merkel cell polyoma virus (MCV). Accordingly, knock-down of the large and small T antigen by shRNA in MCV positive MCC cells did not affect phosphorylation of AKT. We also analyzed 46 MCC samples for activating PIK3CA and AKT1 mutations. Oncogenic PIK3CA mutations were found in 2/46 (4%) MCCs whereas mutations in exon 4 of AKT1 were absent. MCC cell lines demonstrated a high sensitivity towards the PI3K inhibitor LY-294002. This finding together with our observation that the PI3K/AKT pathway is activated in the majority of human MCCs identifies PI3K/AKT as a potential new therapeutic target for MCC patients.
Antibody–drug conjugates (ADCs) are an emerging class of therapeutics, with twelve FDA- and EMA-approved drugs for hematological and solid cancers. Such drugs consist in a monoclonal antibody linked to a cytotoxic agent, allowing a specific cytotoxicity to tumor cells. In recent years, tremendous progress has been observed in therapeutic approaches for advanced skin cancer patients. In this regard, targeted therapies (e.g., kinase inhibitors) or immune checkpoint-blocking antibodies outperformed conventional chemotherapy, with proven benefit to survival. Nevertheless, primary and acquired resistances as well as adverse events remain limitations of these therapies. Therefore, ADCs appear as an emerging therapeutic option in oncodermatology. After providing an overview of ADC design and development, the goal of this article is to review the potential ADC indications in the field of oncodermatology.
HRAS belongs to the RAS genes superfamily. RAS genes are important players in several human tumors and the single-nucleotide polymorphism rs12628 has been shown to contribute to the risk of bladder, colon, gastrointestinal, oral, and thyroid carcinoma. We hypothesized that this SNP may affect the risk of cutaneous melanoma as well. HRAS gene contains a polymorphic region (rs112587690), a repeated hexanucleotide -GGGCCT- located in intron 1. Three alleles of this region, P1, P2, and P3, have been identified that contain two, three, and four repeats of the hexanucleotide, respectively. We investigated the clinical impact of these polymorphisms in a case–control study. A total of 141 melanoma patients and 118 healthy donors from the North America Caucasian population were screened for rs12628 and rs112587690 polymorphisms. Genotypes were assessed by capillary sequencing or fragment analysis, respectively, and rs12628 CC and rs112587690 P1P1 genotypes significantly associated with increased melanoma risk (OR = 3.83, p = 0.003; OR = 11.3, p = 0.033, respectively), while rs112587690 P1P3 frequency resulted significantly higher in the control group (OR = 0.5, p = 0.017). These results suggest that rs12628 C homozygosis may be considered a potential risk factor for melanoma development in the North American population possibly through the linkage to rs112587690.
Background: Eosinophils appear to contribute to the efficacy of immunotherapy and their frequency was suggested as a predictive biomarker. Whether this observation could be transferred to patients treated with targeted therapy remains unknown. Methods: Blood and serum samples of healthy controls and 216 patients with advanced melanoma were prospectively and retrospectively collected. Freshly isolated eosinophils were phenotypically characterized by flow cytometry and co-cultured in vitro with melanoma cells to assess cytotoxicity. Soluble serum markers and peripheral blood counts were used for correlative studies. Results: Eosinophil-mediated cytotoxicity towards melanoma cells, as well as phenotypic characteristics, were similar when comparing healthy donors and patients. However, high relative pre-treatment eosinophil counts were significantly associated with response to MAPKi (p = 0.013). Eosinophil-mediated cytotoxicity towards melanoma cells is dose-dependent and requires proximity of eosinophils and their target in vitro. Treatment with targeted therapy in the presence of eosinophils results in an additive tumoricidal effect. Additionally, melanoma cells affected eosinophil phenotype upon co-culture. Conclusion: High pre-treatment eosinophil counts in advanced melanoma patients were associated with a significantly improved response to MAPKi. Functionally, eosinophils show potent cytotoxicity towards melanoma cells, which can be reinforced by MAPKi. Further studies are needed to unravel the molecular mechanisms of our observations.
Approximately half of all melanoma patients harbour activating mutations in the serine/threonine kinase BRAF. This is the basis for one of the main treatment strategies for this tumor type, the targeted therapy with BRAF and MEK inhibitors. While the initial responsiveness to these drugs is high, resistance develops after several months, frequently at sites of the previously responding tumor. This indicates that tumor response is incomplete and that a certain tumor fraction survives even in drug-sensitive patients, e.g., in a therapy-induced senescence-like state. Here, we show in several melanoma cell lines that BRAF inhibition induces a secretome with stimulating effect on fibroblasts and naive melanoma cells. Several senescence-associated factors were found to be transcribed and secreted in response to BRAF or MEK inhibition, among them members of the fibroblast growth factor family. We identified the growth factor FGF1 as mediator of resilience towards BRAF inhibition, which limits the pro-apoptotic effects of the drug and activates fibroblasts to secrete HGF. FGF1 regulation was mediated by the PI3K pathway and by FRA1, a direct target gene of the MAPK pathway. When FGFR inhibitors were applied in parallel to BRAF inhibitors, resilience was broken, thus providing a rationale for combined therapeutical application.
Cellular and cytokine-dependent immunosuppressive mechanisms of grm1-transgenic murine melanoma
(2012)
Grm1-transgenic mice spontaneously develop cutaneous melanoma. This model allowed us to scrutinize the generic immune responses over the course of melanoma development. To this end, lymphocytes obtained from spleens, unrelated lymph nodes and tumor-draining lymph nodes of mice with no evidence of disease, and low or high tumor burden were analyzed ex vivo and in vitro. Thereby, we could demonstrate an increase in the number of activated CD4\(^+\) and CD8+ lymphocytes in the respective organs with increasing tumor burden. However, mainly CD4\(^+\) T cells, which could constitute both T helper as well as immunosuppressive regulatory T cells, but not CD8\(^+\) T cells, expressed activation markers upon in vitro stimulation when obtained from tumor-bearing mice. Interestingly, these cells from tumor-burdened animals were also functionally hampered in their proliferative response even when subjected to strong in vitro stimulation. Further analyses revealed that the increased frequency of regulatory T cells in tumor-bearing mice is an early event present in all lymphoid organs. Additionally, expression of the immunosuppressive cytokines TGF-β1 and IL-10 became more evident with increased tumor burden. Notably, TGF-β1 is strongly expressed in both the tumor and the tumor-draining lymph node, whereas IL-10 expression is more pronounced in the lymph node, suggesting a more complex regulation of IL-10. Thus, similar to the situation in melanoma patients, both cytokines as well as cellular immune escape mechanisms seem to contribute to the observed immunosuppressed state of tumor-bearing grm1-transgenic mice, suggesting that this model is suitable for preclinical testing of immunomodulatory therapeutics.
Fish of the genus Xiphophorus belong to the oldest animal models in cancer research. The oncogene responsible for the generation of spontaneous aggressive melanoma encodes for a mutated epidermal growth factor receptor (Egfr) and is called xmrk for Xiphophorus melanoma receptor kinase. Xmrk constitutive activation mechanisms and subsequent signaling pathways have already been investigated and charaterized but it is still unknown if Egfr ligands may also play a role in Xmrk-driven melanoma formation. To investigate the potential role of Egfr ligands in Xmrk-driven melanoma, I firstly analyzed the evolution of teleost and tetrapod Egfr/Egfr ligand systems. I especially focused on the analysis on the medaka fish, a closely related species to Xiphophorus, for which the whole genome has been sequenced. I could identify all seven Egfr ligands in medaka and could show that the two teleost-specific Egfr copies of medaka display dissimilar expression patterns in adult tissues together with differential expression of Egfr ligand subsets, arguing for subfunctionalization of receptor functions in this fish. Our phylogenetic and synteny analyses supported the hypothesis that only one gene in the chordate ancestor gave rise to the diversity of Egfr ligands found in vertebrate genomes today. I also could show that the Egfr extracellular subdomains implicated in ligand binding are not evolutionary conserved between tetrapods and teleosts, making the use of heterologous ligands in experiments with fish cells debatable. Despite its well understood and straight-forward process, Xmrk-driven melanomagenesis in Xiphophorus is problematic to further investigate in vivo. Our laboratory recently established a new melanoma animal model by generating transgenic mitf::xmrk medaka fishes, a Xiphophorus closely related species offering many more advantages. These fishes express xmrk under the control of the pigment-cell specific Mitf promoter. During my PhD thesis, I participated in the molecular analysis of the stably transgenic medaka and could show that the Xmrk-induced signaling pathways are similar when comparing Xiphophorus with transgenic mitf::xmrk medaka. These data together with additional RNA expression, protein, and histology analyses showed that Xmrk expression under the control of a pigment cell-specific promoter is sufficient to induce melanoma in the transgenic medaka, which develop very stereotyped tumors, including uveal and extracutaneous melanoma, with early onset during larval stages. To further investigate the potential role of Egfr ligands in Xmrk-driven melanoma, I made use of two model systems. One of them was the above mentioned mitf::xmrk medaka, the other was an in-vitro cell culture system, where the EGF-inducible Xmrk chimera HERmrk is stably expressed in murine melanocytes. Here I could show that HERmrk activation strongly induced expression of amphiregulin (Areg) and heparin-binding EGF-like growth factor (Hbegf) in melanocytes. This regulation was dependent on the MAPK and SRC signaling pathways. Moreover, upregulation of Adam10 and Adam17, the two major sheddases of Egfr ligands, was observed. I also could demonstrate the functionality of the growth factors by invitro analyses. Using the mitf::xmrk medaka model I could also show the upregulation of a subset of ligand genes, namely egf, areg, betacellulin (btc) and epigen (epgn) as well as upregulation of medaka egfrb in tumors from fish with metastatic melanoma. All these results converge to support an Xmrk-induced autocrine Egfr ligand loop. Interestingly, my in-vitro experiments with conditioned supernatant from medaka Egf- and Hbegf-producing cells revealed that not only Xiphophorus Egfrb, but also the pre-activated Xmrk could be further stimulated by the ligands. Altogether, I could show with in-vitro and in-vivo experiments that Xmrk is capable of inducing a functional autocrine Egfr ligand loop. These data confirm the importance of autocrine loops in receptor tyrosine kinase (RTK)-dependent cancer development and show the possibility for a constitutively active RTK to strengthen its oncogenic signaling by ligand binding.
Bioprinting offers the opportunity to fabricate precise 3D tumor models to study tumor pathophysiology and progression. However, the choice of the bioink used is important. In this study, cell behavior was studied in three mechanically and biologically different hydrogels (alginate, alginate dialdehyde crosslinked with gelatin (ADA–GEL), and thiol-modified hyaluronan (HA-SH crosslinked with PEGDA)) with cells from breast cancer (MDA-MB-231 and MCF-7) and melanoma (Mel Im and MV3), by analyzing survival, growth, and the amount of metabolically active, living cells via WST-8 labeling. Material characteristics were analyzed by dynamic mechanical analysis. Cell lines revealed significantly increased cell numbers in low-percentage alginate and HA-SH from day 1 to 14, while only Mel Im also revealed an increase in ADA–GEL. MCF-7 showed a preference for 1% alginate. Melanoma cells tended to proliferate better in ADA–GEL and HA-SH than mammary carcinoma cells. In 1% alginate, breast cancer cells showed equally good proliferation compared to melanoma cell lines. A smaller area was colonized in high-percentage alginate-based hydrogels. Moreover, 3% alginate was the stiffest material, and 2.5% ADA–GEL was the softest material. The other hydrogels were in the same range in between. Therefore, cellular responses were not only stiffness-dependent. With 1% alginate and HA-SH, we identified matrices that enable proliferation of all tested tumor cell lines while maintaining expected tumor heterogeneity. By adapting hydrogels, differences could be accentuated. This opens up the possibility of understanding and analyzing tumor heterogeneity by biofabrication.
Das maligne Melanom ist ein Tumor der Hautpigmentzellen mit weltweit steigender Inzidenz. Aufgrund seiner frühzeitigen lymphogenen und hämatogenen Metastasierung zählt das maligne Melanom zu den prognostisch sehr ungünstigen Tumorerkrankungen. Nach erfolgter Metastasierung werden mit den derzeitig etablierten Therapieschemata noch keine ausreichenden Prognoseverbesserungen erzielt. Einen möglichen neuen Therapieansatz stellt die Blockade der Tumorangiogenese dar. Besondere Bedeutung wird dabei der zyto- bzw. chemokinvermittelten Angiogenese zugemessen. In den letzten Jahren zeigten verschiedene diesbezügliche Studien richtungsweisende und erfolgversprechende Ergebnisse. Trotzdem besteht weiterhin hoher Bedarf an Verbesserung des Verständnisses der zugrundeliegenden Regulationsmechanismen. Ziel der vorliegenden Arbeit war, die Sekretion acht angiogenetisch wirksamer Zyto- und Chemokine in vitro durch hoch- und niedrigmaligne Melanomzellen unter normalen Kulturbedingungen sowie unter Hypoxie, Serum- und Glukosemangel zu erfassen. Diese Stressbedingungen dienten als vereinfachtes in vitro-Modell der Mangelbedingungen, die in schnell wachsenden bzw. Nekrosezonen angrenzenden Tumorarealen vorherrschen. Mittels ELISA wurden die abgegeben Mengen der Zytokine VEGF, b-FGF, Angiogenin, PDGF und TGF-ß sowie der Chemokine IL-8, Gro-α und GM-CSF in den Zellüberständen bestimmt. Dabei zeigten die verschiedenen Melanomzelllinien für alle getesteten Zyto- bzw. Chemokine außer GM-CSF charakteristische Sekretionsverhalten unter bestimmten Kulturbedingungen. Insbesondere unter Hypoxie und nach Reoxigenierung ließen sich signifikante Veränderungen im Sekretionsverhalten der verschiedenen Melanomzelllinien feststellen. Eine signifikante Steigerung in der Freisetzung der Zyto- bzw. Chemokine durch Melanomzellen unter Hypoxie ließ sich nur für VEGF, b-FGF, Angiogenin und IL-8 feststellen. Zudem unterschieden sich hochmaligne Melanomzelllinien signifikant von niedrigmalignen Zelllinien in ihrer Sekretion von VEGF, Angiogenin, PDGF, IL-8 und Gro-α unter normalen Kulturbedingungen und unter Hypoxie (Angiogenin, PDGF, IL-8 und Gro-α). In weiterführenden Experimenten wurde das Sekretionsverhalten von normalen Melanozyten, Endothelzellen und Fibroblasten untersucht. Dabei wiesen differenzierte Melanozyten im Vergleich zu den Melanomzellen signifikante Unterschiede in den abgegebenen Zyto-/ Chemokinmengen für VEGF, Angiogenin, PDGF, IL-8 und Gro-α unter normalen bzw. hypoxischen Kulturbedingungen auf. Differenzierte Melanozyten unterschieden sich also von Melanomzellen in ihrer Sekretion bei den selben Zyto- bzw. Chemokinen wie niedrigmaligne von hochmalignen Melanomzelllinien (VEGF, Angiogenin, PDGF, IL-8 und Gro-α). Im Sekretionsverhalten für VEGF, Angiogenin, IL-8 und Gro-α ähnelten Fibroblasten und Endothelzellen (bzgl. VEGF nur HMEC-1) den Melanomzellen. Der Einfluss dieser vier Zyto- und Chemokine und b-FGF auf das in-vitro-Wachstumsverhalten von Endothelzellen wurde mit einem BrD-U-Proliferationsassay untersucht. Sowohl mikrovaskuläre (HMEC-1) als auch makrovaskuläre (HUVEC) Endothelzellen steigerten ihre Proliferation unter dem Einfluss von VEGF, b-FGF, Angiogenin, IL-8 und Gro-α signifikant. HMEC-1 reagierten dabei mit einem tendenziell stärkeren Ansprechen auf die Stimulation als HUVEC. In weiteren Versuchen zeigten HUVEC eine erhöhte Sensibilität für Zytokine (insbesondere für b-FGF) unter Serummangelbedingungen, nicht jedoch für Chemokine (IL-8 und Gro-α). Am deutlichsten fiel die Proliferationssteigerung unter dem Einfluss der einzelnen Zyto- und Chemokine aus, wenn HUVEC in nonadhärentem Zustand stimuliert wurden. Mit den Ergebnissen dieser Arbeit konnte erstmalig bzw. zeitgleich mit anderen Publikationen gezeigt werden, dass Melanomzellen unter Hypoxie nicht nur VEGF, sondern auch Angiogenin und IL-8 deutlich vermehrt sezernieren, dass diese Sekretionssteigerung nach Reoxigenierung weiter anhält und Melanomzellen signifikant von differenzierten Melanozyten unterscheidet. Jedes dieser Zyto- und Chemokine stimulierte die Endothelzellproliferation in vitro. Dabei erhöhten Serummangel und vor allem initial fehlende Zell-Zellkontakte die Zyto- bzw. Chemokinwirkung. Im Gegensatz zu dem bisher intensiver untersuchten VEGF sezernierten hochmaligne Melanomzellen unter Hypoxie signifikant mehr Angiogenin und IL-8 als niedrigmaligne Melanomzellen. Nur für Angiogenin zeigte sich darüber hinaus eine gegensätzliche Sekretionsregulation unter Hypoxie aller Melanomzellen im Vergleich zu normalen Melanozyten. Dies könnte für IL-8 und im Besonderen für Angiogenin auf eine mögliche Schlüsselfunktion in der Melanom-induzierten Angiogenese hindeuten. Inwieweit Rückschlüsse auf die in vivo-Verhältnisse und eine klinische Relevanz zulässig sind, werden weitere Untersuchungen und ggf. Therapiestudien zeigen müssen.
Malignant melanoma incidence is rising worldwide. Its treatment in an advanced state is difficult, and the prognosis of this severe disease is still very poor. One major source of these difficulties is the high rate of metastasis and increased genomic instability leading to a high mutation rate and the development of resistance against therapeutic approaches. Here we investigate as one source of genomic instability the contribution of activation of transposable elements (TEs) within the tumor. We used the well-established medaka melanoma model and RNA-sequencing to investigate the differential expression of TEs in wildtype and transgenic fish carrying melanoma. We constructed a medaka-specific TE sequence library and identified TE sequences that were specifically upregulated in tumors. Validation by qRT- PCR confirmed a specific upregulation of a LINE and an LTR element in malignant melanomas of transgenic fish.