The Mechanisms of Synergistically Cytotoxicity Induced by Homoharringtonine and Aclarubicin in Acute Myeloid Leukemia Cells

Abstract 4313

Previous studies showed HAA regime [HHT (homoharringtonine), cytarabine and ACR (aclarubicin)] resulted in a high complete remission (CR) rate and a better overall survival (OS) rate in patients with primary acute myeloid leukemia. To confirm if a synergistically cytotoxicity was found in AML cells, we investigated the antitumor effect relationship of HHT and ACR against AML cells. Using in vitro system, we demonstrated that simultaneous exposure to HHT and ACR resulted in strong synergistic anti-proliferative effect and apoptosis inducing in AML cells. In vivo, combination of HHT and ACR may be result in a favorable survival in AML xenograft mice. The assay of microarray gene expressing profiling highlighted apparent difference in expression of PI3K gene and WNT3a gene between cells treated by HHT and cells exposure to ACR. Furthermore, decreased expression of PI3K110 and P-AKT protein were observed in AML cells treated with HHT for 3h while no significant change in the expression of two proteins was observed in 90nM of ACR-treated cells. Western Blot analysis also showed ACR could obviously inhibit WNT3a and β-catenin protein levels in AML cells after 3 hours exposure. Although HHT could not inhibit WNT3a protein, it also could apparently down-regulate expression of β-catenin in AML cells. Simultaneous decrease of PI3K signal and WNT3a signal was induced by the combination of HHT and ACR in AML cell lines and primary AML cells. To explore possible targets of synergistically cytotoxity induced by combined HHT/ACR, we silenced wnt3a expression by RNA interference. Then we found suppression of wnt3a expression could enhance the cytotoxity of HHT and AKT inhibitor. Moreover, combining ACR with AKT inhibitor resulted in a synergistically cytotoxic effect too. β-catenin is a shared molecular in both AKT pathway and WNT pathway. Up-regulating of β-catenin expression failed to reduce cell apoptosis induced by HHT plus ACR while partially decrease the growth inhibition rate caused by combining treatment. β-catenin is required for the self-renewal of AML-LSC. Our study also suggests that combining HHT and ACR may synergistically induce apoptosis in LSC-enriched cells. These results indicate that simultaneously inhibiting activity of PI3K/AKT pathway and WNT/β-catenin pathway is a possible mechanism of synergistically cytotoxity induced combinated HHT/ACR in AML cells.