IGF Signaling Is Critical for Growth and Survival of T-Cell Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia Cells and Is Potentiated by Notch Upregulation of IGF1R

T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (T-ALL) is a malignancy of immature T cell progenitors in which we described activating mutations of Notch1 to occur in over 50% of cases. As well, others have identified loss-of-function mutations in Sel10/Fbw7 to occur in 8–16% of cases, which also enhance Notch signaling. Notably, inhibition of Notch signaling in these cells induces growth arrest and in some cases apoptosis as well. Subsequent studies have characterized c-myc as a critical downstream target of Notch signaling in this context. More recently, mutations in PTEN (occurring in 17% of cases) were shown to potentiate PI3K/Akt signaling and proposed to confer resistance to Notch signaling inhibition, but then impose “addiction” to PI3K/Akt. Most leukemias likely derive cooperative growth/survival signals from Notch and PI3K/Akt pathways, as evidenced by synergistic effects of gamma-secretase inhibitors (GSI) which block Notch signaling and rapamycin which blocks mTOR downstream of PI3K/Akt. In mouse models, combined activation of c-myc and b-catenin with inactivation of PTEN elicited T-ALL which was devoid of Notch mutations, suggesting Notch signaling coordinately activates c-myc, Wnt, and PI3K/Akt signaling pathways. In studying the mechanism for PI3K/Akt activation in T-ALL with activated Notch signaling, we examined insulin-like growth factor receptor-1 (IGF1R) as a candidate upstream initiator of PI3K/Akt activation. We observed IGF1R expression consistently in T-ALL cells from primary human leukemias and cell lines, as well as in primary mouse leukemias derived experimentally by retroviral transduction of marrow with activated forms of Notch1. In all cases, inhibition of IGF1R signaling either with blocking antibody or small molecule kinase inhibitors resulted in growth suppression and apoptosis of leukemia cells. We further observed that inhibition of Notch signaling either by small molecule GSI or transduction with a dominant negative coactivator, Mastermind, resulted in a 2–3 fold decrease in IGF1R expression. Given that the PI3K/Akt/mTOR pathway is known to be important for growth/survival of T-ALL leukemia cells, we hypothesized that Notch might be potentiating activation of this pathway by upregulating IGF1R expression. In fact, we found leukemia cells with active Notch and higher IGF1R levels showed 20-fold greater sensitivity to IGF-1 ligand induced Akt activation as compared to leukemia cells with inactive Notch and lower IGF1R levels. This enhanced signaling output cannot be explained by Notch suppression of PTEN as this effect was noted in both PTEN wild-type and PTEN null leukemia cells. Additionally, cells with wild type PTEN demonstrated only minimal if any changes in PTEN protein levels after Notch inhibition as measured by a highly quantitative flow cytometry assay. In sum, we have identified IGF-1 signaling as being critical to growth and survival of T-ALL leukemia cells, and provide evidence that Notch may potentiate PI3K/Akt signaling by upregulating expression of IGF1R. These data are of immediate clinical relevance as several IGF1R inhibitors are currently in Phase 3 clinical trial and hopefully will provide additional therapeutic options to refractory/relapsed patients and/or in combination with front-line therapy in newly diagnosed patients.