Biomedical subjects
Jan Paul Medema
Publications and source records attributed to Jan Paul Medema.
Broad in vitro efficacy of plant-derived betulinic acid against cell lines derived from the most prevalent human cancer types.
Betulinic acid (BA) is a widely available plant-derived triterpene with reported activity against cancer cells of neuroectodermal origin and leukaemias. Treatment with BA was shown to protect mice against transplanted human melanoma and led to tumor regression. In contrast, cells from healthy tissues were resistant to BA and toxic side-effects in animals were absent. These findings have raised interest in the chemotherapeutical anti-cancer potential of BA. A comprehensive assessment of the efficacy of BA against the clinically most important cancer types is currently lacking. Therefore, we tested the in vitro sensitivity of broad cell line panels derived from lung, colorectal, breast, prostate and cervical cancer, which are the prevalent cancer types characterized with highest mortalities in woman and men. Multiple assays were used in order to allow a reliable assessment of anti-cancer efficacy of BA. After 48 h of treatment with BA, cell viability as assessed with MTT and cell death as measured with propidium iodide exclusion showed clear differences in sensitivity between cell lines. However, in all cell lines tested colony formation was completely halted at remarkably equal BA concentrations that are likely attainable in vivo. Our results substantiate the possible application of BA as a chemotherapeutic agent for the most prevalent human cancer types.
Prognostic value of apoptosis in rectal cancer patients of the dutch total mesorectal excision trial: radiotherapy is redundant in intrinsically high-apoptotic tumors.
PURPOSE: The combination of radiotherapy and good quality surgery reduces local recurrence rate for rectal cancer patients. This study assesses the prognostic value of both intrinsic and radiotherapy-induced apoptosis and evaluates the relevance of radiotherapy for outcome of rectal cancer patients. EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN: Tumor samples (1,198) were available from the Dutch Total Mesorectal Excision trial, in which rectal cancer patients were treated with standardized surgery and randomized for preoperative short-term radiotherapy or not. Tumor samples were obtained at time of surgery. Tissue microarrays were constructed and stained with the active caspase-specific M30 antibody to determine the amount of apoptotic epithelial tumor cells. RESULTS: Nonirradiated patients with a negative circumferential margin displaying lower than median levels of apoptosis developed more local recurrences (10.5% versus 6.1%; P=0.06) and more rapidly after surgery than patients with high intrinsic apoptosis in their tumors (median time to recurrence, 13.0 versus 21.3 months; P=0.04). In multivariate analysis, intrinsic apoptosis was an independent predictor for the development of local recurrences (hazard ratio, 2.0; P=0.05). Radiotherapy increased apoptosis level (11 versus 23 apoptotic cells/mm2 tumor epithelium; P<0.001), but this apoptosis did not influence patients' prognosis. CONCLUSIONS: Rectal cancer patients with low intrinsic apoptosis will benefit from radiotherapy with respect to the development of local recurrences. Because apoptosis is an inherent characteristic of tumors, patients who do not need radiotherapy may be selected based on the apoptotic index of the primary tumor.
Does the serpin PI-9 protect tumor cells?
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Detection and functional analysis of CD8+ T cells specific for PRAME: a target for T-cell therapy.
PURPOSE: Preferentially expressed antigen on melanomas (PRAME) is an interesting antigen for T-cell therapy because it is frequently expressed in melanomas (95%) and other tumor types. Moreover, due to its role in oncogenic transformation, PRAME-negative tumor cells are not expected to easily arise and escape from T-cell immunity. The purpose of this study is to investigate the usefulness of PRAME as target for anticancer T-cell therapies. EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN: HLA-A*0201-subtyped healthy individuals and advanced melanoma patients were screened for CD8+ T cells directed against previously identified HLA-A*0201-binding PRAME peptides by IFN-gamma enzyme-linked immunosorbent spot assays and tetramer staining. PRAME-specific T-cell clones were isolated and tested for recognition of melanoma and acute lymphoid leukemia (ALL) cell lines. PRAME mRNA expression was determined by quantitative real-time reverse transcription-PCR. RESULTS: In 30% to 40% of healthy individuals and patients, PRA(100-108)-specific CD8+ T cells were detected both after in vitro stimulation and directly ex vivo after isolation by magnetic microbeads. Although CD45RA- memory PRA(100-108)-specific T cells were found in some individuals, the majority of PRA(100-108)-tetramer+ T cells expressed CD45RA, suggesting a naive phenotype. PRA(100-108)-tetramer+ T-cell clones were shown to recognize and lyse HLA-A*0201+ and PRAME+ melanoma but not ALL cell lines. Quantitative real-time reverse transcription-PCR showed significantly lower PRAME mRNA levels in ALL than in melanoma cell lines, suggesting that PRAME expression in ALL is below the recognition threshold of our PRA(100-108)-tetramer+ T cells. CONCLUSION: These data support the usefulness of PRAME and in particular the PRA(100-108) epitope as target for T-cell therapy of PRAME-overexpressing cancers.
Serpins prevent granzyme-induced death in a species-specific manner.
Expression of serine protease inhibitors (serpins) is one of the mechanisms used by tumour cells to escape immune surveillance. Previously, we have shown that expression of serpins SPI-6 and SPI-CI, respectively, renders tumour cells resistant to granzyme B (GrB)-mediated death and granzyme M (GrM)-mediated death. To obtain better insight into the interaction between serpins and their target proteases, we investigated the roles of protease inhibitor (PI)-9 and SPI-6 in the resistance to GrB-mediated and CD95-mediated death in further detail. Neither human PI-9 nor its murine orthologue SPI-6 was capable of preventing CD95-induced apoptosis in murine or human cells, indicating that these serpins do not inhibit the activation of apical caspases in this pathway. High expression of PI-9 or SPI-6 did prevent apoptosis induced by human GrB. Strikingly, only SPI-6, and not PI-9, was capable of inhibiting murine GrB, suggesting that a difference in enzymatic specificity exists between the mouse and the human granzymes. In agreement with this suggestion, murine GrB was clearly less effective in inducing apoptosis in human cells. Similar species specificity was also observed for SPI-CI and GrM when either their capacity to associate or the effectiveness of GrM-induced cytotoxicity was analysed. Our findings therefore indicate a species diversity that has a clear effect on mixed in vitro effector target settings.
Macrodissection versus microdissection of rectal carcinoma: minor influence of stroma cells to tumor cell gene expression profiles.
BACKGROUND: The molecular determinants of carcinogenesis, tumor progression and patient prognosis can be deduced from simultaneous comparison of thousands of genes by microarray analysis. However, the presence of stroma cells in surgically excised carcinoma tissues might obscure the tumor cell-specific gene expression profiles of these samples. To circumvent this complication, laser microdissection can be performed to separate tumor epithelium from the surrounding stroma and healthy tissue. In this report, we compared RNAs isolated from macrodissected, of which only surrounding healthy tissue had been removed, and microdissected rectal carcinoma samples by microarray analysis in order to determine the most reliable approach to detect the expression of tumor cell-derived genes by microarray analysis. RESULTS: As microdissection yielded low tissue and RNA quantities, extra rounds of mRNA amplification were necessary to obtain sufficient RNA for microarray experiments. These second rounds of amplification influenced the gene expression profiles. Moreover, the presence of stroma cells in macrodissected samples had a minor contribution to the tumor cell gene expression profiles, which can be explained by the observation that more RNA is extracted from tumor epithelial cells than from stroma. CONCLUSION: These data demonstrate that the more convenient procedure of macrodissection can be adequately used and yields reliable data regarding the identification of tumor cell-specific gene expression profiles.
SPI-CI and SPI-6 cooperate in the protection from effector cell-mediated cytotoxicity.
Tumors have several mechanisms to escape from the immune system. One of these involves expression of intracellular anticytotoxic proteins that modulate the execution of cell death. Previously, we have shown that the serine protease inhibitor (serpin) SPI-6, which inactivates the cytotoxic protease granzyme B (GrB), is capable of preventing cytotoxic T lymphocyte (CTL)-mediated apoptosis. Despite its potent antiapoptotic activity, SPI-6 does not prevent membranolysis induced by cytotoxic lymphocytes. We now provide evidence that several colon carcinoma cell lines do resist membranolysis and that this protection is dependent on SPI-6 but also requires expression of a closely related serpin called SPI-CI (serine protease inhibitor involved in cytotoxicity inhibition). Expression of SPI-CI is absent from normal colon but observed in placenta, testis, early during embryogenesis, and in cytotoxic lymphocytes. SPI-CI encodes a chymotrypsin-specific inhibitor and irreversibly interacts with purified granzyme M. Moreover, SPI-CI can protect cells from purified perforin/GrM-induced lysis. Our data therefore indicate that SPI-CI is a novel immune escape molecule that acts in concert with SPI-6 to prevent cytotoxic lymphocyte-mediated killing of tumor cells.
An in vivo functional genetic screen reveals a role for the TRK-T3 oncogene in tumor progression.
Over the past decades, much has been learnt about the genes that contribute to oncogenic transformation of primary cells in vitro. However, much less is known about the genes that contribute to the later stages of tumor progression, in which cells of ever increasing malignancy arise through clonal selection in vivo. To search for genes that confer a tumor progression phenotype in vivo, we have used a functional genetic approach. We used adenovirus-transformed mouse embryo fibroblasts, which are tumorigenic in immunodeficient nude mice, but not in immunocompetent mice, due to strong cytotoxic T-cell-mediated immune rejection. We infected these cells in vitro with several high-complexity retroviral cDNA expression libraries and selected rare variants that formed tumors in immunocompetent mice. Using this approach, we identify here the TRK-T3 oncogene as a tumor progression gene. TRK-T3 does not inhibit T-cell reactivity towards the tumor cells. Instead, we find that cells expressing TRK-T3 enhances in vivo growth rate, most likely by stimulating anchorage-independent proliferation in growth factor-limiting conditions. Our data indicate that cDNA expression libraries can be used to identify tumor progression genes in vivo that cannot be readily identified using in vitro cell culture systems.
APRIL promotes B-1 cell-associated neoplasm.
A tumor-supporting role for the TNF-like ligand APRIL has been suggested. Here we describe that 9- to 12-month-old APRIL transgenic mice develop lymphoid tumors that originate from expansion of the peritoneal B-1 B cell population. Aging APRIL transgenic mice develop progressive hyperplasia in mesenteric lymph nodes and Peyer's patches, disorganization of affected lymphoid tissues, mucosal and capsular infiltration, and eventual tumor cell infiltration into nonlymphoid tissues such as kidney and liver. We detected significantly increased APRIL levels in sera of B cell chronic lymphoid leukemia (B-CLL) patients, indicating that APRIL promotes onset of B-1-associated neoplasms and that APRIL antagonism may provide a therapeutic strategy to treat B-CLL patients.
TWE-PRIL; a fusion protein of TWEAK and APRIL.
TWEAK and APRIL are both members of the tumor necrosis factor family, which are involved in respectively angiogenesis and immune regulation. While TWEAK is processed at the cell surface, APRIL is processed inside the cell by a furin-convertase and is solely able to perform its function as a soluble factor. Recently, TWE-PRIL has been identified, which is an endogenous hybrid transcript between TWEAK and APRIL. TWE-PRIL is a transmembrane protein that consists of a TWEAK intracellular, transmembrane and stalk region combined with APRIL as its receptor-binding domain. As such TWE-PRIL is expressed at the cell surface. Although TWE-PRIL, like APRIL, can stimulate T and B cell lines, distinct biological functions that may result from its membrane anchoring cannot be excluded. Understanding the function of this newly identified protein will contribute to the elucidation of the complexity of the tumor necrosis factor family.
Fibroblast-like synoviocytes from rheumatoid arthritis patients express less FLICE-inhibitory protein than fibroblast-like synoviocytes from trauma patients: comment on the article by Schedel et al.
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CD40 stimulation leads to effective therapy of CD40(-) tumors through induction of strong systemic cytotoxic T lymphocyte immunity.
Adequate spontaneous activation of tumor-specific T lymphocytes in tumor-bearing hosts is rare, despite the expression of tumor antigens that are potentially highly immunogenic. For example, failure of the immune system to raise competent responses against established tumors expressing the human adenovirus E1A-antigen allows this tumor to grow in immunocompetent mice. We show that systemic in vivo administration of agonistic anti-CD40 antibodies into tumor-bearing mice results in tumor eradication mediated by CD8(+) T cells. Treatment resulted in a strong expansion and systemic accumulation of E1A-specific CTL and depended on CD40 expression on host cells, as the tumor was CD40(-), and therapy failed in CD40-deficient mice. Local intratumoral administration of anti-CD40 mAb is equally effective in licensing strong, systemic CTL immunity, resulting in the clearance of distant tumor nodules. Our data indicate that the immune response after cancer-host interactions can be directed toward competence, leading to the cure of established tumors merely by delivery of a CD40-dependent "license to kill" signal.
Chromosome instability: lessons from HIV.
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APRIL modulates B and T cell immunity.
The TNF-like ligands APRIL and BLyS are close relatives and share the capacity to bind the receptors TACI and BCMA. BLyS has been shown to play an important role in B cell homeostasis and autoimmunity, but the biological role of APRIL remains less well defined. Analysis of T cells revealed an activation-dependent increase in APRIL mRNA expression. We therefore generated mice expressing APRIL as a transgene in T cells. These mice appeared normal and showed no signs of B cell hyperplasia. Transgenic T cells revealed a greatly enhanced survival in vitro as well as enhanced survival of staphylococcal enterotoxin B-reactive CD4+ T cells in vivo, which both directly correlate with elevated Bcl-2 levels. Analysis of humoral responses to T cell-dependent antigens in the transgenic mice indicated that APRIL affects only IgM but not IgG responses. In contrast, T cell-independent type 2 (TI-2) humoral response was enhanced in APRIL transgenic mice. As TACI was previously reported to be indispensable for TI-2 antibody formation, these results suggest a role for APRIL/TACI interactions in the generation of this response. Taken together, our data indicate that APRIL is involved in the induction and/or maintenance of T and B cell responses.
Hepatic natural killer cells exclusively kill splenic/blood natural killer-resistant tumor cells by the perforin/granzyme pathway.
Hepatic natural killer (NK) cells are located in the liver sinusoids adherent to the endothelium. Human and rat hepatic NK cells induce cytolysis in tumor cells that are resistant to splenic or blood NK cells. To investigate the mechanism of cell death, we examined the capacity of isolated, pure (90%) rat hepatic NK cells to kill the splenic/blood NK-resistant mastocytoma cell line P815. Cell death was observed and quantified by fluorescence and transmission electron microscopy, DNA fragmentation, and (51)Cr release. RNA and protein expression were determined by real time reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction and Western blotting. Compared with splenic NK cells, hepatic NK cells expressed higher levels of perforin and granzyme B and readily induced apoptosis in P815 cells. Although P815 cells succumbed to recombinant Fas ligand (FasL) or isolated perforin/granzyme B, hepatic NK cells used only the granule pathway to kill this target. In addition, hepatic NK cells and sinusoidal endothelial cells strongly expressed the granzyme B inhibitor, protease inhibitor 9 (PI-9)/serine PI-6 (SPI-6), and P815 cells and hepatocytes were negative. Transfection of target cells with this inhibitor resulted in complete resistance to hepatic NK cell-induced apoptosis. In conclusion, hepatic NK cells kill splenic/blood NK-resistant/FasL-sensitive tumor cells exclusively by the perforin/granzyme pathway. Serine protease inhibitor PI-9/SPI-6 expression in liver sinusoidal endothelial cells may protect the liver microenvironment from this highly active perforin/granzyme pathway used to kill metastasizing cancer cells.