Project description:Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is an aggressive disease for which only few targeted therapies are available. Using high-throughput RNA interference (RNAi) screening in AML cell lines, we identified LIM kinase 1 (LIMK1) as a potential novel target for AML treatment. High LIMK1 expression was significantly correlated with shorter survival of AML patients and coincided with FLT3 mutations, KMT2A rearrangements, and elevated HOX gene expression. RNAi- and CRISPR-Cas9-mediated suppression as well as pharmacologic inhibition of LIMK1 and its close homolog LIMK2 reduced colony formation and decreased proliferation due to slowed cell cycle progression of KMT2A-rearranged AML cell lines and patient-derived xenograft (PDX) samples. This was accompanied by morphologic changes indicative of myeloid differentiation. Transcriptome analysis showed upregulation of several tumor suppressor genes as well as downregulation of HOXA9 targets and mitosis-associated genes in response to LIMK1 suppression, providing a potential mechanistic basis for the anti-leukemic phenotype. Finally, we observed a reciprocal regulation between LIM kinases (LIMK) and CDK6, a kinase known to be involved in the differentiation block of KMT2A-rearranged AML, and addition of the CDK6 inhibitor palbociclib further enhanced the anti-proliferative effect of LIMK inhibition. Together, these data suggest that LIMK are promising targets for AML therapy.
Project description:To investigate an unknown mechanism of cytotoxicity, A549 human lung-cancer cells were treated with compounds from a series of inhibitors developed against the human LIM kinases LIMK1 and LIMK2. Compounds 1 and 2 inhibit LIM kinase activity in vitro and affect cell proliferation and survival in vivo. Compounds 3 and 4 inhibit LIM kinases but do not affect cell survival or proliferation. Compounds 5 and 6 affect proliferation and survival but do not inhibit LIM kinases. Nocodazole was included as a comparator because the compounds were known to affect microtubule stability. A treatment of 7 hours was used to examine events prior to apoptosis, while the dose levels captured both cytotoxicity and inhibition of LIMKs (Compounds 1 and 2), LIMK inhibition alone ( Compounds 3 and 4) or cytotoxicity alone (Compounds 5, 6, and Nocodazole).
Project description:LIM kinases are located at a strategic crossroad, downstream of several signaling pathways and upstream of effectors such as microtubules and the actin cytoskeleton.. Cofilin is the only LIM kinases substrate that is well described to date, and its phosphorylation on serine 3 by LIM Kinases controls cofilin actin-severing activity. Consequently, LIM Kinases inhibition leads to actin cytoskeleton disorganization and blockade of cell motility, which makes this strategy attractive in anticancer strategies. We have used proteomic approaches to investigate quantitatively and in detail the phosphorylation status of cofilin in myeloid tumor cell lines of murine and human origin. Our results show that under standard conditions, only a relatively small fraction (10 to 30% depending on the cell line) of cofilin is phosphorylated (including serine 3 phosphorylation). In addition, after a pharmacological inhibition of LIM kinases, a residual cofilin phosphorylation is observed on serine 3. Interestingly, this 2D gel based proteomic study identified new phosphorylation sites on cofilin, such as threonine 63, tyrosine 82 and serine 108.
Project description:Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is a clonal hematopoietic malignancy, characterized by expansion of immature leukemic blasts in the bone marrow. In AML, specific tyrosine kinases have been implicated in leukemogenesis, and are associated with poor treatment outcome. However, targeted therapy using kinase inhibitors (KIs) has had limited success, and may be improved by proper patient selection. We performed phosphotyrosine (pY) based, label-free phosphoproteomics to identify hyperphosphorylated, active kinases in two FLT3+ AML Pt samples.
Project description:Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is a clonal hematopoietic malignancy, characterized by expansion of immature leukemic blasts in the bone marrow. In AML, specific tyrosine kinases have been implicated in leukemogenesis, and are associated with poor treatment outcome. However, targeted therapy using kinase inhibitors (KIs) has had limited success, and may be improved by proper patient selection. We performed phosphotyrosine (pY) based, label-free phosphoproteomics to identify hyperphosphorylated, active kinases in two FLT3+ AML Pt samples and this data is deposited in PXD015639 . Here are the corresponding lysate samples
Project description:Label-free quantitation dataset from 44 representative Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML) patients from the LAML TCGA dataset, and 6 healthy bone marrow derived controls including 3 lineage-depleted and 3 CD34+ selected bone marrows.