Looking for Driver Pathways of Acquired Resistance to Targeted Therapy: Drug Resistant Subclone Generation and Sensitivity Restoring by Gene Knock-down

Summary

This is a time- and cost-effective in vitro protocol investigating the mechanisms of acquired resistance to targeted therapeutic agents, which is a highly unmet medical need in cancer management.

Abstract

The past two decades have seen a shift from cytotoxic drugs to targeted therapy in medical oncology. Although targeted therapeutic agents have shown more impressive clinical efficacy and minimized adverse effects than traditional treatments, drug resistance has become the main limitation to their benefits. Several preclinical in vitro/in vivo models of acquired resistance to targeted agents in clinical practice have been developed mainly by using two strategies: i) genetic manipulation for modeling genotypes of acquired resistance, and ii) in vitro/in vivo selection of resistant models. In the present work, we propose a unifying framework, for investigating the underlying mechanisms responsible for acquired resistance to targeted therapeutic agents, starting from the generation of drug-resistant cellular subclones to the description of silencing procedures used for restoring the sensitivity to the inhibitor. This simple time- and cost-effective approach is widely applicable, and could be easily extended to investigate resistance mechanisms to other targeted therapeutic drugs in different tumor histotypes.

Introduction

Following up on the crucial discoveries in molecular and cellular biology, a number of novel synthesized anticancer molecules have been developed to selectively target oncogenic signaling pathways in a broad array of tumor types. In particular, two categories of targeted therapeutic agents with unique properties in oncology, namely synthetic chemical compounds and recombinant monoclonal antibodies, are known to have achieved clinical successes and dramatically altered cancer care in recent decades^1,2,3.

Nevertheless, despite their impressive initia....

Protocol

NOTE: This protocol has been specifically adjusted for the analysis of the mechanisms underlying acquired resistance to trastuzumab of HER-positive gastric cancer cell lines. All laboratory instruments needed are reported in the Table of Materials.

1. Generation of Targeted Therapy Resistant Subclones

NOTE: This is the most critical and difficult to standardize step in the protocol due to the fact that different cell lines may exhibit different sensitivities to the targeted therapeutic inhibitor independently from their tumor histotype or drug concentration used.

1. Culture NCI-N87 cell ....

Results

Figure 1 outlines the framework of the experimental procedure. Three gastric cancer cell-lines expressing a high level of HER2 and sensitive to trastuzumab (IC₅₀ < peak plasma level of drug, Figure 2A, left graph) were grown in culture medium containing the targeted therapeutic agent. A dose 10-fold lower than the peak plasma concentration of trastuzumab (10 µg/mL) was set as the starting dose, and gradually increas.......

Discussion

While personalized and targeted therapies have elicited growing enthusiasm, these so-called 'smart' therapies face the same major hurdle as traditional chemotherapy drugs, i.e., the rapid and unpredictable acquisition of drug resistance. To improve the results of targeted therapy, drug-resistance problems must be solved through a better understanding of the mechanisms that cause them. Here, we presented a widely accessible in vitro methodology to investigate the mechanisms of acquired resistance.......

Materials

List of materials used in this article

Name	Company	Catalog Number	Comments
Trizol Reagent	Invitrogen	15596026	TRIzol Reagent is a reagent for isolating high-quality total RNA or simultaneously isolating RNA, DNA, and protein from a variety of biological samples
ISCRIPT CDNA SYNTHESIS KIT	Bio-Rad	1708891	The iScript cDNA synthesis kit is a sensitive and easy-to-use first-strand cDNA synthesis kit for gene expression analysis using real-time qPCR.
TaqMan gene expression assay	Life Technologies	4331182	Applied Biosystems TaqMan Gene Expression Assays consist of a pair of unlabeled PCR primers and a TaqMan probe with an Applied Biosystems FAM or VIC dye label on the 5’ end and minor groove binder (MGB) and nonfluorescent quencher (NFQ) on the 3’ end.
M-PER Mammalian Protein Extraction Reagent	Thermo Scientific	78501	Thermo Scientific M-PER Mammalian Protein Extraction Reagent is designed to provide highly efficient total soluble protein extraction from cultured mammalian cells.
Halt Protease and Phosphatase Inhibitor Cocktail (100X)	Thermo Scientific	78440	Thermo Scientific Halt Protease and Phosphatase Inhibitor Cocktail (100X) provides the convenience of a single solution with full protein sample protection for cell and tissue lysates.
Pierce BCA Protein Assay Kit	Thermo Scientific	23225	The Thermo Scientific Pierce BCA Protein Assay Kit is a two-component, high-precision, detergent-compatible assay reagent set to measure (A562nm) total protein concentration compared to a protein standard.
4x Laemmli Sample Buffer	Bio-Rad	1610747	Use 4x Laemmli Sample Buffer for preparation of samples for SDS PAGE. For reduction of samples, add a reducing agent such as 2-mercaptoethanol to the buffer prior to mixing with the sample.
4–20% Mini-PROTEAN TGX Precast Protein Gels	Bio-Rad	456-1094	Long-life TGX (Tris-Glycine eXtended) Gels have a novel formulation and can be used for both standard denaturing protein separations as well as native electrophoresis.
Precision Plus Protein WesternC Blotting Standards	Bio-Rad	1610376	Precision Plus Protein Prestained Standards are available in Dual Color, All Blue, Kaleidoscope, and Dual Xtra formats. All four have the same gel migration patterns, with 3 high-intensity reference bands (25, 50, and 75 kD).
10x Tris/Glycine/SDS	Bio-Rad	1610732	10x Tris/glycine/SDS is a premixed running buffer for separating protein samples by SDS-PAGE.
Trans-Blot Turbo Mini PVDF Transfer Packs	Bio-Rad	1704156	Trans-Blot Turbo Mini PVDF Transfer Packs for fast, efficient transfer of proteins from mini gels using the Trans-Blot Turbo Transfer System. Each vacuum sealed, ready-to-use transfer pack contains two buffer-saturated ion reservoir stacks and a prewetted PVDF membrane.
Precision Protein StrepTactin-HRP Conjugate	Bio-Rad	1610381	StrepTactin-Horseradish Peroxidase (HRP) Conjugate for chemiluminescent or colorimetric detection of Precision Plus Protein Unstained Protein Standards or Precision Plus Protein WesternC Protein Standards on western blots.
Immun-Star WesternC solution	Bio-Rad	5572	Immun-Star WesternC solution, a method of protein detection , detects mid-femtogram amounts of protein.
Universal Negative Control	Invitrogen	12935300	Negative Control siRNA has no significant sequence similarity to mouse, rat, or human gene sequences. The control has also been tested in cell-based screens and proven to have no significant effect on cell proliferation, viability, or morphology.
opti-MEM Glutamax Medium	Thermo Fisher Scientific	51985026	Opti-MEM Medium is an improved Minimal Essential Medium (MEM) that allows for a reduction of Fetal Bovine Serum supplementation by at least 50% with no change in growth rate or morphology.
Silencer Select Pre-Designed & Validated siRNA	Ambion	4390824	RNA interference (RNAi) is the best way to effectively knock down gene expression to study protein function in a wide range of cell types.
Lipofectamine RNAiMAX Transfection Reagent	Invitrogen	13778075	Lipofectamine RNAiMAX Transfection Reagent offers an advanced, efficient solution for siRNA delivery. No other siRNA specific transfection reagent provides such easy and efficient siRNA delivery in a wide variety of cell lines including common cell types, stem cells and primary cells, as well as traditionally hard-to-transfect cell types.
Mouse anti-IQGAP1	Invitrigen	33-8900	working concentration: 1:400 in 5% milk solution
goat anti-mouse IgG-HRP: sc-2005	Santa Cruz	sc-2005	working concentration: 1:10000 in 5% milk solution
PMSF	Sigma Aldrich	P 7626	this is an inhibitor of serine proteases and acetylcholinesterase
Thermocycler for RT-PCR	MJ Research	MJ Research PTC-200 Thermal Cycler	it allows temperature homogeneity and a ramping speed of up to 3°C/sec. The protocol can be performed also with other thermalcyclers
Real Time RT-PCR instrument	Applied Biosystems	7500 RT-PCR system	This is a five-color platform that uses fluorescence-based polymerase chain reaction (PCR) reagents to provide a relative quantification using comparative CT assay type. The protocol can be performed also with other thermalcyclers
Microvolume Spectrophotometers	Thermo Scientific	Nanodrop	It provides an accurate and fast acid nucleid measurement using little volume of sample
Blotting system	Bio-Rad	Trans-Blot Turbo system	It perfoms a semy-dry transfer in a few minutes
Image acquisition system and gel documentation	Bio-Rad	Chemidoc image system	It is easy to use for chemiluminescent detection