Disulfiram, an clinically used anti-alcoholism drug has the potential to target acute myeloid leukemia cells in a copper-dependent manner in vivo

Disulfiram(DS), an old drug clinically used for alcoholism, was reported to have antitumor effects, recent studies have found that Copper(Cu) can significantly enhance the DS-induced cell death in vitro in a variety of tumor cells. Our previous studies also demonstrated that disulfiram/copper (DS/Cu) couldtarget human leukemia cell lines(like KG1α,Molt4) through the activation of JNK, in vitro. However, there is few report about the ability of DS/Cu in killing cancer cells in vivo.

This study aims to explore the effect of DS/Cu on acute myeloid leukemia cell line KG1αin vivo and clarify the underlining mechanism.

6-8 week old female NOD/SCID mice were sublethally irradiated with 2Gy X-ray the day before transplantation, followed by intravenous injection of KG1α cells (1×107 cells) suspended in 0.2 mL of PBS. 5 weeks after transplantation mice were randomly divided into three treatment groups: vehicle (0.9% saline), a combination of DS and Cu daily for 2 weeks, Ara-C alone twice before killing. Mice were sacrificed after 2 weeks treatment with tissues of spleen, liver, bone marrow being observed using histopathology method to detect the invasion of leukemia. The DS/Cu-induced p-c-jun activation was also examined by western blot using tissues of spleen, liver, bone marrow. Statistical analysis was carried out with one-way ANOVA to assess statistical significance (*p < 0.05).

4 weeks after transplantation, mice were dispirited with low appetite, down-bent gait, wrinkled fur, slow move, just like suffered from leukemia. What’s more, immature blasts like morphology similar to KG1α were found in the peripheral blood of the mice(11%±3.41). All the mice were sacrificed after 2 weeks treatment, mice in control group were observed with slightly larger spleen and liver with the morphology of invasion of leukemia such as a granular appearance than the other two groups. Histopathology examination showed that leukemia cells infiltrate liver, spleen and bone marrow, and the immunohistochemistry examination found that the leukemia cells in spleen, liver and bone marrow expressed human specific antigen CD45 with the highest expression level in the control group. Moreover, solid tumor could be observed in the peritoneal cavity of two mice in the control group with expression of human specific antigen CD45detected by immunohistochemistry examination. Western blot in this study showed DS/Cu complex induced phosphorylation of c-Jun expression in the spleen, liver and bone marrow.

DS/Cu complex could effectively target the acute myeloid leukemia cells in the acute leukemia NOD/SCID mice while inhibiting the invasion of leukemia to some extent, and the activation of JNK might play a functional role in DS/Cu mediated antileukemic effects.

No relevant conflicts of interest to declare.