The Novel Sulfonamidebenzamide ML291 Activates Apoptotic UPR Signaling in Pediatric Leukemia

Background: Acute leukemias are the most common cancers in childhood. Despite multi-agent chemotherapy protocols and the introduction of novel molecularly targeted therapies which have resulted in improved survival over the last few decades, relapsed acute lymphoblastic leukemia remains the second most common pediatric cancer diagnosis. In addition, morbidities from current chemotherapy regimens are unacceptably high. Abundant evidence point to a major role for mediators of the unfolded protein response (UPR) in normal and leukemic white blood cell biology. We have demonstrated that activation of the UPR is a productive approach to inhibit the proliferation of solid tumor cell lines in vitro and to reducing xenograft burden in vivo. The UPR consists of genetically distinct mechanisms that serve to clear misfolded proteins from the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) and enhance protein folding, or induce apoptosis if the initiating stress is prolonged or robust. ML291 is a novel UPR-inducing sulfonamidebenzamide, identified through cell-based high throughput screening and iterative SAR-guided chemical synthesis, that overwhelms the adaptive capacity of the UPR and induces apoptosis in a variety of solid cancer models.

Objective: To determine the ability of ML291 to activate the UPR and induce apoptosis in a panel of leukemia cell lines, and to use CHOP-null K562 cells to elucidate the relative contribution of the UPR. We hypothesized that ML291 might activate the PERK/eIF2a/CHOP (apoptotic) arm of the UPR and reduce leukemic cell burden in vitro and in vivo.

Methods: MTT and luciferase-based proliferation assays, flow cytometry and RT-qPCR were used to evaluate cell growth, UPR activation and apoptosis in a panel of leukemia cell lines that included AML, ALL and CML in cells exposed to ML291. CRISPR-Cas9 genome editing was used to delete CHOP in K562 (human myeloid leukemia) cells. Deletion was validated by immunoblot analysis and these cells were subjected to the same proliferation and gene analyses described above. The in vivo response to ML291 therapy was evaluated in an established zebrafish xenograft assay (Corkery et al. BJH 2011) in which embryos were xenotransplanted with wild type or CHOP knockdown K562 cells and embryos bathed in ML291.

Results: Immunoblot and RT-qPCR analysis revealed an accumulation of proteins and increased gene expression for downstream UPR genes, including CHOP, GRP78/BiP, GADD34 and XBP1 in leukemia cells following ML291 treatment, indicating the activation of the UPR. Increased expression of the apoptotic genes, NOXA, PUMA and DR5 was also observed post-treatment with ML291; and dose response proliferation assays performed after 24 hours revealed IC50 concentrations of 1 - 30µM across cell lines. CHOP deleted K562 cells were protected from cell death when cultured with increasing concentrations of ML291, and were significantly less able to translocate phosphatidylserine across the cell membrane and activate the caspase cascade. When zebrafish embryos xenotransplanted with K562-wild type or -CHOP-null cells were bathed in water containing 5mM ML291 for three days, there was a significant reduction in leukemia cell burden exclusively in theK562 wild type xenografts.

Conclusion: Collectively these data indicate that intact PERK/eIF2a/CHOP signaling is required for efficient leukemic cell apoptosis in response to ML291 in vitro and in vivo, and support the hypothesis that small molecule enforcement of the UPR might be a productive therapeutic approach in leukemia.