Aurora kinase inhibitors synergize with paclitaxel to induce apoptosis in ovarian cancer cells
- PDF / 2,198,602 Bytes
- 13 Pages / 610 x 792 pts Page_size
- 107 Downloads / 177 Views
BioMed Central
Open Access
Research
Aurora kinase inhibitors synergize with paclitaxel to induce apoptosis in ovarian cancer cells Christopher D Scharer1,2, Noelani Laycock1, Adeboye O Osunkoya1, Sanjay Logani1, John F McDonald3,4, Benedict B Benigno4 and Carlos S Moreno*1,5 Address: 1Department of Pathology & Laboratory Medicine, Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, GA 30322, USA, 2Program in Genetics & Molecular Biology, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, USA, 3School of Biology, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA 30332, USA, 4Ovarian Cancer Institute, Atlanta, GA 30342, USA and 5Winship Cancer Institute, Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, GA 30322, USA Email: Christopher D Scharer - [email protected]; Noelani Laycock - [email protected]; Adeboye O Osunkoya - [email protected]; Sanjay Logani - [email protected]; John F McDonald - [email protected]; Benedict B Benigno - [email protected]; Carlos S Moreno* - [email protected] * Corresponding author
Published: 11 December 2008 Journal of Translational Medicine 2008, 6:79
doi:10.1186/1479-5876-6-79
Received: 1 August 2008 Accepted: 11 December 2008
This article is available from: http://www.translational-medicine.com/content/6/1/79 © 2008 Scharer et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Abstract Background: A large percentage of patients with recurrent ovarian cancer develop resistance to the taxane class of chemotherapeutics. While mechanisms of resistance are being discovered, novel treatment options and a better understanding of disease resistance are sorely needed. The mitotic kinase Aurora-A directly regulates cellular processes targeted by the taxanes and is overexpressed in several malignancies, including ovarian cancer. Recent data has shown that overexpression of Aurora-A can confer resistance to the taxane paclitaxel. Methods: We used expression profiling of ovarian tumor samples to determine the most significantly overexpressed genes. In this study we sought to determine if chemical inhibition of the Aurora kinase family using VE-465 could synergize with paclitaxel to induce apoptosis in paclitaxelresistant and sensitive ovarian cancer cells. Results: Aurora-A kinase and TPX2, an activator of Aurora-A, are two of the most significantly overexpressed genes in ovarian carcinomas. We show that inhibition of the Aurora kinases prevents phosphorylation of a mitotic marker and demonstrate a dose-dependent increase of apoptosis in treated ovarian cancer cells. We demonstrate at low doses that are specific to AuroraA, VE-465 synergizes with paclitaxel to induce 4.5-fold greater apoptosis than paclitaxel alone in 1A9 cells. Higher doses are needed to induce apoptosis in paclitaxel-resistant PTX10 cells. Conclusion: Our results show tha
Data Loading...
