Preclinical Study of PI3K and BRAF Inhibitors in Malignant Melanoma

[eng] Malignant melanoma is the most lethal skin cancer with no effective therapeutic treatment in its metastatic stages. RAS and PI3K pathways have been shown to play a critical role in melanoma development and progression. In this study, we assessed the in vitro and in vivo inhibition potential of...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autor: López Fauqued, Marta
Tipo de recurso: tesis doctoral
Estado:Versión publicada
Fecha de publicación:2010
País:España
Institución:Universidad de Barcelona
Repositorio:Dipòsit Digital de la UB
OAI Identifier:oai:diposit.ub.edu:2445/36202
Acceso en línea:https://hdl.handle.net/2445/36202
http://www.tdx.cat/TDX-0709110-113035
http://hdl.handle.net/10803/1040
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Genètica molecular
Càncer de pell
Melanoma
Medicaments antineoplàstics
Ratolins (Animals de laboratori)
Molecular genetics
Skin cancer
Antineoplastic agents
Mice (Laboratory animals)
Descripción
Sumario:[eng] Malignant melanoma is the most lethal skin cancer with no effective therapeutic treatment in its metastatic stages. RAS and PI3K pathways have been shown to play a critical role in melanoma development and progression. In this study, we assessed the in vitro and in vivo inhibition potential of a BRAF inhibitor (Sorafenib, Bayer) and a PI3K/mTOR inhibitor (PI-103, PIramed-Genentech) in primary melanoma cell lines. We used primary cell lines isolated from spontaneous melanomas obtained in the UV induced HGF transgenic melanoma mouse model. Although PI-103 and sorafenib inhibited melanoma in vitro cell proliferation and viability, the inhibition of RAS pathway was more effective. The combination of the two drugs showed a synergistic effect inhibiting RAS and PI3K pathways and in vitro melanoma cell proliferation in a cell line dependent manner. However, the combined treatment of orthotopic xenographs in immunocompetent FVB mice did not cooperate blocking tumor growth. Surprisingly, the in vivo treatment with PI-103 enhanced tumor growth. Our results also revealed that PI-103 caused immunosuppression inducing thymus atrophy and upregulating the intratumoral transcriptional levels of inmunosuppressors. In addition, PI-103 induced the antiapoptotic BH3 family proteins Mcl-1, Bcl-2 and BclXL, which correlated with the lower apoptotic rate observed within the PI-103 treated tumors. These data indicates that due to melanoma heterogeneity, some precautions should be taken when using these inhibitors for treatment. Moreover, these results certainly make an argument for investigating unexpected effects of rational drug combinations on immunocompetent animal models before conducting clinical studies.