Abstract
Esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) has a worldwide impact on human health, due to its high incidence and mortality. Therefore, identifying compounds to increase patients' survival rate is urgently needed. Mefloquine (MQ) is an FDA-approved anti-malarial drug, which has been reported to inhibit cellular proliferation in several cancers. However, the anti-tumor activities of the drug have not yet been completely defined. In this study, mass spectrometry was employed to profile proteome changes in ESCC cells after MQ treatment. Sub-cellular localization and gene ontology term enrichment analysis suggested that MQ treatment mainly affect mitochondria. The KEGG pathway enrichment map of down-regulated pathways and Venn diagram indicated that all of the top five down regulated signaling pathways contain four key mitochondrial proteins (succinate dehydrogenase complex subunit C (SDHC), succinate dehydrogenase complex subunit D, mitochondrially encoded cytochrome c oxidase III and NADH: ubiquinone oxidoreductase subunit V3). Meanwhile, mitochondrial autophagy was observed in MQ-treated KYSE150 cells. More importantly, patient-derived xenograft mouse models of ESCC with SDHC high expression were more sensitive to MQ treatment than low SDHC-expressing xenografts. Taken together, mefloquine inhibits ESCC tumor growth by inducing mitochondrial autophagy and SDHC plays a vital role in MQ-induced anti-tumor effect on ESCC.
Original language | English (US) |
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Article number | 1217 |
Journal | Frontiers in Oncology |
Volume | 10 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Jul 28 2020 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:This research was funded by the National Natural Science Foundations of China (grant number 81872335), National Natural Science Youth Foundation (grant number 81902486), National Science & Technology Major Project Key New Drug Creation and Manufacturing Program, China (No. 2018ZX09711002), the Natural Science Foundation of Henan (grant number 161100510300), and China Scholarship Council.
Funding Information:
Funding. This research was funded by the National Natural Science Foundations of China (grant number 81872335), National Natural Science Youth Foundation (grant number 81902486), National Science & Technology Major Project Key New Drug Creation and Manufacturing Program, China (No. 2018ZX09711002), the Natural Science Foundation of Henan (grant number 161100510300), and China Scholarship Council.
Publisher Copyright:
© Copyright © 2020 Xie, Zhang, Lu, Bao, Zhao, Lu, Wei, Yao, Jiang, Yuan, Zhang, Li, Chen, Dong and Liu.
Keywords
- autophagy
- esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC)
- mefloquine (MQ)
- mitochondria
- succinate dehydrogenase complex subunit C (SDHC)