Synergistic effects of GS-1101 and Doxorubicin in acute lymphoblastic leukemia cell line

Abstract

Background and purpose: Interest into targeting PI3K in cancer has increased by the recent disclosure that aberrant activity of PI3K/Akt signaling pathway is associated with disease recurrence and poor outcome in different malignancies. The aim of this study was to investigate the potentiating effect of PI3K inhibitor, GS-1101 on doxorubicin-induced cell death in acute lymphoblastic leukemia-derived, Nalm-6 cells. Materials and methods: In this experimental study, to evaluate whether abrogating PI3K/Akt pathway using GS-1101 could enhance cytotoxic effect of doxorubicin in acute lymphoblastic leukemia, Nalm-6 pre-B ALL cells were subjected to combination treatment and subsequent cell viability. Then cell count, metabolic activity, and transcriptional alteration of apoptosis-related target genes were investigated using Trypan blue exlussion, MTT and Rq-PCR analysis, respectively. Results: Our data delineated that GS-1101 augments doxorubicin-induced cytotoxic and its anti-proliferative effect, as evidenced by the decreased cell survival, cellular metabolic activity, and reduction in the number of inhibitor-treated viable cells. Moreover, real-time PCR analysis revealed that induction of cell death by the drug combination was associated with increased Bax transcriptional activity (P≤0.01) followed by the elevated molecular ratio of Bax/Bcl-2 (P≤0.001). Conclusion: This study suggested that abrogation of the PI3K pathway using GS-1101 could potentiate doxorubicin-induced anti-leukemic activity.

Keywords

• acute lymphoblastic leukemia
• gs-1101
• doxorubicin
• cell death
• nalm-6 cells