The abnormal regulation of H+ ions, leading to a reversed pH gradient in cancer cells when compared to normal cells, is considered to be one of the most distinctive features of cancer. However, this characteristic has yet to be fully exploited as a therapeutic target in cancer. This project assessed whether targeting pH regulating proteins, which permit cancer cells to survive in the hostile hypoxic and acidic tumour microenvironment, could produce an effective therapeutic response in breast cancer. The pH regulating proteins carbonic anhydrase IX (CAIX), Na+/H+ exchanger 1 (NHE1) and vacuolar (H+)-ATPase (V-ATPase) were the focus of this thesis. Initial experiments were conducted in 2D tissue culture before progressing into 3D, using models that more faithfully re-create the in vivo tumour microenvironment. Expression analysis conducted with MCF-7, MDA-MB-231 and HBL-100 human breast cancer cell lines cultured in 2D, and in 3D as multicellular tumour spheroids, showed that protein and mRNA levels of CAIX were very responsive to lower O2 concentrations. Both MDA-MB-231 and HBL-100 cells displayed large increases in CAIX expression levels in hypoxia, with the HBL-100 cell line exhibiting the largest change in CAIX mRNA (42-fold increase) and protein (78-fold increase) levels in 0.5% O2 conditions. Hypoxia inducible factor 1-α (HIF-1α) controls the expression of CAIX, but the induction of CAIX in hypoxic MCF-7 cells was lower in comparison to the other cell lines, despite the presence of similar levels of HIF-1α. The differences in CAIX expression observed between the cell lines was consistent with a varying activity of factor inhibiting HIF-1 (FIH-1), an oxygen sensor that controls signalling through HIF-1α, as siRNA targeting FIH-1 led to increased levels of CAIX in hypoxic MCF-7 cells. While NHE1 protein levels did increase in hypoxic conditions in MCF-7 cells in 3D, overall, the expression levels of both NHE1 and V-ATPase were not as responsive to changes in O2 concentrations when compared to CAIX across differing O2 conditions in each of the cell lines. Inhibitors targeting CAIX, NHE1 and V-ATPase were all shown to reduce cancer cell number in 2D culture conditions. Differing O2 conditions changed the sensitivity of these cell lines to CAIX inhibition. Cells cultured in 20% O2 conditions were responsive to CAIX inhibition, while acute hypoxic cells cultured in 0.5% O2 displayed an increased resistance to drug treatment. Chronically hypoxic cells, which had spent over 10 weeks in 0.5% O2 before treatment, exhibited a re-sensitisation to CAIX inhibition. 3D invasion assays demonstrated that CAIX inhibition significantly reduced the invasion of cells from MDA-MB-231 spheroids into collagen type 1 in both 20% O2 and 0.5% O2 conditions, while drugs targeting either NHE1 or V-ATPase had no such inhibitory effects. Preliminary clonogenic assays, used to assess radiation sensitivity and performed with MDA-MB-231 spheroids, indicated that inhibitors targeting CAIX and NHE1 led to a significant decrease in colony formation when combined with irradiation, compared to either drug treatment or irradiation alone. Further invasion assays, carried out with primary tissue derived from human patients, showed that drugs targeting CAIX retained their inhibitory effects when tested on heterogeneous cancer material of varying tumour subtypes. CAIX inhibition also exhibited anti-cancer effects in vivo on mouse MDA-MB-231 xenografts, significantly reducing the proliferation and growth of tumours within mice. Together, this work demonstrates that inhibitors targeting the pH regulation mechanisms of cancer cells have potential in the treatment of breast cancer, highlighted by their capacity to affect cancer cell number, cancer cell invasion, and their ability to combine with irradiation. Of the 3 pH regulatory molecules studied, CAIX appears to be the target with the most therapeutic potential.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:738862 |
| Date | January 2017 |
| Creators | Meehan, James |
| Contributors | Langdon, Simon ; Ward, Carol |
| Publisher | University of Edinburgh |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Source | http://hdl.handle.net/1842/28875 |
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