Heat Shock Protein 70 Inhibitor, Alone or in Combination with Bortezomib, Prevented Plasmacytoma Development in Immunodeficient Mice Transplanted with Myeloma Cell Lines

Introduction: HSP70 has an integrative role in protein degradation due to the interaction with many pathways, such as ubiquitin proteasome (UPS), unfolded protein response (UPR) and autophagy. In multiple myeloma (MM) HSP70 is overexpressed and helps to prevent proteotoxic stress and cell death caused by overload of unfolded/misfolded proteins produced by tumor cells. Aims: To explore the role of HSP70 inhibition, isolated or in association with proteasome inhibitor, as therapeutic strategy for MM through in vitro and in vivo analyses. Methods: RPMI8226-LUC-PURO and U266-LUC-PURO bioluminescent cell lines were treated with HSP70 inhibitor (VER155008- 50 μM or 80μM) and proteasome inhibitor (bortezomib 100nM) for evaluation of apoptosis induction by flow cytometry using annexin V and propidium iodide. NOD.Cg-rkdc^scid Il2rg^tm1Wjl/SzJ immunodeficient mice were used for plasmacytoma xenograft model and treated with intravenous VER155008 (40mg/kg) and bortezomib (1mg/kg), immediately after transplant of RPMI8226-LUC-PURO and U266-LUC-PURO bioluminescent cell lines (N=3 for each group, including controls, bortezomib, VER155008, and combination of bortezomib and VER155008). Bioluminescence was measured in IVIS Kinetic (Capiler Life Science) once a day for seven days. Results: Bortezomib used as single treatment was able to induce apoptosis in RPMI8226-LUC-PURO cell line: the best result for in vitro studies RPMI8226-LUC-PURO was 65% of late apoptosis after treatment with bortezomib. On the other hand, U266-LUC-PURO cell line presented higher percentage of apoptosis when treated with bortezomib and VER155008 combination: U266-LUC-PURO cell line presented more than 60% of late apoptosis after VER155008 (80μM) combined with bortezomib, showing that inhibition of HSP70 could overcome U266-LUC-PURO resistance to bortezomib alone. Mice treated with VER155008, alone or in combination with bortezomib, showed complete inhibition of tumor growth (absence of bioluminescence) for both cell lines when compared with control group after one week of treatment (p<0.001, Two-way ANOVA). Therefore, in vivo studies using mice treated with VER155008, alone or in combination with bortezomib, prevented tumor development after one week of treatment, independent of the cell line used in the xenotransplant. Conclusion: Our study shows that HSP70 and proteasome inhibitors combination induced apoptosis in tumor cells in vivo for both MM cell lines. Since HSP70 is overexpressed in MM and connects several signaling pathways that maintain cell survival, such as UPS, UPR and autophagy, it can represent a key role to establish a new approach for the treatment of MM. Financial support: FAPESP 2010/17668-6 and CNPq (155272/2013-6). UNIFESP Ethics Committee (0219/12).