Canevarolo, R.R.; Cury, N.M.; Yunes, J.A. The Expression and Activation of the NF-κB Pathway Correlate with Methotrexate Resistance and Cell Proliferation in Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia. Genes2023, 14, 1880.
Canevarolo, R.R.; Cury, N.M.; Yunes, J.A. The Expression and Activation of the NF-κB Pathway Correlate with Methotrexate Resistance and Cell Proliferation in Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia. Genes 2023, 14, 1880.
Canevarolo, R.R.; Cury, N.M.; Yunes, J.A. The Expression and Activation of the NF-κB Pathway Correlate with Methotrexate Resistance and Cell Proliferation in Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia. Genes2023, 14, 1880.
Canevarolo, R.R.; Cury, N.M.; Yunes, J.A. The Expression and Activation of the NF-κB Pathway Correlate with Methotrexate Resistance and Cell Proliferation in Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia. Genes 2023, 14, 1880.
Abstract
Acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) is the most common childhood cancer. Although prognosis continually improved along years, a significant proportion of patients still relapse from the disease due to leukemia resistance to therapy. Methotrexate (MTX), a folic acid antagonist, is a chemotherapy agent commonly used against ALL and a immune-system suppressant for rheumatoid arthritis, that presents multiple and complex mechanisms of action and resistance. Previous studies have shown that MTX modulates the nuclear factor kappa B (NF-κB) pathway, an important family of transcription factors involved in inflammation, immunity, cell survival, and proliferation, frequently hyperactivated in ALL. Using gene set enrichment analysis (GSEA) on publicly available gene expression data from 161 newly diagnosed pediatric ALL patients, we found “TNF-α signaling pathway” to be the most enriched Cancer Hallmark in MTX poor responder patients. Transcriptomic analysis in a panel of ALL cell lines (6 BCP-ALL and 7 T-ALL) also identified the same pathway as differentially enriched among MTX resistant cell lines, as well as in slowly dividing cells. To better understand the crosstalk between NF-κB activity and MTX resistance, we genetically modified the cell lines to express luciferase under a NF-κB biding site promoter. We observed that the fold change in NF-κB activity triggered by TNF-α (but not MTX) treatment correlated with MTX resistance and proliferation across the lines. At the individual gene level, NFKB1 expression was directly associated with a poorer clinical response to MTX, and with both an increased TNF-α-triggered NF-κB activation and MTX resistance in the cell lines. Despite these results, pharmacological inhibition (with BAY 11-7082 and parthenolide) or stimulation (with exogenous TNF-α supplementation) of the NF-κB pathway did not alter MTX resistance of the cell lines significantly, evidencing a complex interplay between MTX and NF-κB in ALL.
Keywords
acute lymphoblastic leukemia; methotrexate; NF-κB; TNF-α; drug resistance
Subject
Biology and Life Sciences, Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
Copyright:
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
