Cyclic Dinucleotides and Histone deacetylase inhibitors
Curators: Larry H. Bernsten, MD, FCAP and Aviva Lev-Ari, PhD, RN
LPBI
New Class of Immune System Stimulants: Cyclic Di-Nucleotides (CDN): Shrink Tumors and bolster Vaccines, re-arm the Immune System’s Natural Killer Cells, which attack Cancer Cells and Virus-infected Cells
Reporter: Aviva Lev-Ari, PhD, RN
The Immunotherapeutics and Vaccine Research Initiative (IVRI), a UC Berkeley effort funded by Aduro Biotech, Inc.
https://pharmaceuticalintelligence.com/2016/04/24/new-class-of-immune-system-stimulants-cyclic-di-nucleotides-cdn-shrink-tumors-and-bolster-vaccines-re-arm-the-immune-systems-natural-killer-cells-which-attack-cancer-cells-and-virus-inf/
A new class of immune system stimulants called cyclic di-nucleotides have shown promise in shrinking tumors and bolstering vaccines against tuberculosis, and research that could help re-arm the immune system’s natural killer cells, which normally attack cancer cells and virus-infected cells, to better fight tumors.
Much of the excitement around combining these two areas — the immunology of cancer and the immunology of infectious disease — comes from the amazing success of immunotherapy against cancer, which started with the work of James Allison when he was a professor of immunology at UC Berkeley and director of the Cancer Research Laboratory from 1985 to 2004. Allison, now at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, discovered a way to release a brake on the body’s immune response to cancer that has proved highly successful at unleashing the immune system to attack melanoma and is being tried against other types of cancer. Allison’s technique uses an antibody that blocks an immune suppressor called CTLA4, antibodies that block another immune suppressor, PD1. This has been successful in treating melanoma, renal cancer and a type of lung cancer. Both CTLA4 and PD1 antibodies are now FDA-approved as cancer therapies.
Another promising avenue involves a protein in cells that responds to foreign DNA to launch an innate immune response — the first response of the body’s immune system. The protein, dubbed STING, is triggered by small molecules called cyclic di-nucleotides (CDN), and makes immune cells release interferon and other cytokines that activate disease-fighting T cells and stimulate the production of antibodies that together kill invading pathogens and destroy cancer cells. Listeria bacteria, for example, secrete a CDN directly into infected cells that activates STING.
Russell Vance, a UC Berkeley professor of molecular and cell biology and current head of the Cancer Research Laboratory, discovered several years ago that the chemical structure of these di-nucleotides is critical to their ability to work in humans. Aduro has since developed a CDN designed to work in humans and found that injecting it directly into a tumor in mice caused the tumor to shrink.
Sarah Stanley, an assistant professor of public health, has found evidence that CDNs can help improve the imperfect vaccines we have today against tuberculosis.
Researchers at UC Berkeley will have access to Aduro’s novel technology platforms for research use, including its STING pathway activators, proprietary monoclonal antibodies and the engineered listeria bacteria, referred to as LADD (listeria attenuated double-deleted). David Raulet, professor of molecular and cell biology and director of IVRI has contributed to making these cells a new focus of cancer research. As tumors advance, NK cells inside the tumors appear to become desensitized, he said. Recent research shows that some cytokines and other immune mediators Raulet discovered are able to “wake them up” and get them to resume their elimination of cancer cells.
Histone deacetylase inhibitors: molecular mechanisms of action
W S Xu1,2, R B Parmigiani1,2 and P A Marks1
Oncogene (2007) 26, 5541–5552; http://dx.doi.org:/10.1038/sj.onc.1210620
This review focuses on the mechanisms of action of histone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibitors (HDACi), a group of recently discovered ‘targeted’ anticancer agents. There are 18 HDACs, which are generally divided into four classes, based on sequence homology to yeast counterparts. Classical HDACi such as the hydroxamic acid-based vorinostat (also known as SAHA and Zolinza) inhibits classes I, II and IV, but not the NAD+-dependent class III enzymes. In clinical trials, vorinostat has activity against hematologic and solid cancers at doses well tolerated by patients. In addition to histones, HDACs have many other protein substrates involved in regulation of gene expression, cell proliferation and cell death. Inhibition of HDACs causes accumulation of acetylated forms of these proteins, altering their function. Thus, HDACs are more properly called ‘lysine deacetylases.’ HDACi induces different phenotypes in various transformed cells, including growth arrest, activation of the extrinsic and/or intrinsic apoptotic pathways, autophagic cell death, reactive oxygen species (ROS)-induced cell death, mitotic cell death and senescence. In comparison, normal cells are relatively more resistant to HDACi-induced cell death. The plurality of mechanisms of HDACi-induced cell death reflects both the multiple substrates of HDACs and the heterogeneous patterns of molecular alterations present in different cancer cells.
histone deacetylase, histone deacetylase inhibitor, apoptosis, mitotic cell death, senescence, angiogenesis
Acetylation and deacetylation of histones play an important role in transcription regulation of eukaryotic cells (Lehrmann et al., 2002;Mai et al., 2005). The acetylation status of histones and non-histone proteins is determined by histone deacetylases (HDACs) and histone acetyl-transferases (HATs). HATs add acetyl groups to lysine residues, while HDACs remove the acetyl groups. In general, acetylation of histone promotes a more relaxed chromatin structure, allowing transcriptional activation. HDACs can act as transcription repressors, due to histone deacetylation, and consequently promote chromatin condensation. HDAC inhibitors (HDACi) selectively alter gene transcription, in part, by chromatin remodeling and by changes in the structure of proteins in transcription factor complexes (Gui et al., 2004). Further, the HDACs have many non-histone proteins substrates such as hormone receptors, chaperone proteins and cytoskeleton proteins, which regulate cell proliferation and cell death (Table 1). Thus, HDACi-induced transformed cell death involves transcription-dependent and transcription-independent mechanisms (Marks and Dokmanovic, 2005; Rosato and Grant, 2005; Bolden et al., 2006;Minucci and Pelicci, 2006).
Table 1 – Nonhistone protein substrates of HDACs (partial list). Full table
http://www.nature.com/common/images/table_thumb.gif
In humans, 18 HDAC enzymes have been identified and classified, based on homology to yeast HDACs (Blander and Guarente, 2004;Bhalla, 2005; Marks and Dokmanovic, 2005). Class I HDACs include HDAC1, 2, 3 and 8, which are related to yeast RPD3 deacetylase and have high homology in their catalytic sites. Recent phylogenetic analyses suggest that this class can be divided into classes Ia (HDAC1 and -2), Ib (HDAC3) and Ic (HDAC8) (Gregoretti et al., 2004). Class II HDACs are related to yeast Hda1 (histone deacetylase 1) and include HDAC4, -5, -6, -7, -9 and -10 (Bhalla, 2005; Marks and Dokmanovic, 2005). This class is divided into class IIa, consisting of HDAC4, -5, -7 and -9, and class IIb, consisting of HDAC6 and -10, which contain two catalytic sites. All class I and II HDACs are zinc-dependent enzymes. Members of a third class, sirtuins, require NAD+ for their enzymatic activity (Blander and Guarente, 2004) (see review by E Verdin, in this issue). Among them, SIRT1 is orthologous to yeast silent information regulator 2. The enzymatic activity of class III HDACs is not inhibited by compounds such as vorinostat or trichostatin A (TSA), that inhibit class I and II HDACs. Class IV HDAC is represented by HDAC11, which, like yeast Hda 1 similar 3, has conserved residues in the catalytic core region shared by both class I and II enzymes (Gao et al., 2002).
HDACs are not redundant in function (Marks and Dokmanovic, 2005; Rosato and Grant, 2005; Bolden et al., 2006). Class I HDACs are primarily nuclear in localization and ubiquitously expressed, while class II HDACs can be primarily cytoplasmic and/or migrate between the cytoplasm and nucleus and are tissue-restricted in expression.
The structural details of the HDAC–HDACi interaction has been elucidated in studies of a histone deacetylase-like protein from an anerobic bacterium with TSA and vorinostat (Finnin et al., 1999). More recently, the crystal structure of HDAC8–hydroxamate interaction has been solved (Somoza et al., 2004; Vannini et al., 2004). These studies provide an insight into the mechanism of deacetylation of acetylated substrates. The hydroxamic acid moiety of the inhibitor directly interacts with the zinc ion at the base of the catalytic pocket.
This review focuses on the molecular mechanisms triggered by inhibitors of zinc-dependent HDACs in tumor cells that explain in part: (I) the effects of these compounds in inducing transformed cell death and (II) the relative resistance of normal and certain cancer cells to HDACi induced cell death. HDACi, for example, the hydroxamic acid-based vorinostat (SAHA, Zolinza), are promising drugs for cancer treatment (Richon et al., 1998; Marks and Breslow, 2007). Several HDACi are in phase I and II clinical trials, being tested in different tumor types, such as cutaneous T-cell lymphoma, acute myeloid leukemia, cervical cancer, etc (Bug et al., 2005; Chavez-Blanco et al., 2005; Kelly and Marks, 2005;Duvic and Zhang, 2006) (Table 2). Although considerable progress has been made in elucidating the role of HDACs and the effects of HDACi, these areas are still in early stages of discovery.
Table 2 – HDACi in clinical trials. Full table
http://www.nature.com/common/images/table_thumb.gif
Recent phylogenetic analyses of bacterial HDACs suggest that all four HDAC classes preceded the evolution of histone proteins (Gregoretti et al., 2004). This suggests that the primary activity of HDACs may be directed against non-histone substrates. At least 50 non-histone proteins of known biological function have been identified, which may be acetylated and substrates of HDACs (Table 1) (Glozak et al., 2005; Marks and Dokmanovic, 2005;Rosato and Grant, 2005; Bolden et al., 2006; Minucci and Pelicci, 2006; Zhao et al., 2006). In addition, two recent proteomic studies identified many lysine-acetylated substrates (Iwabata et al., 2005; Kim et al., 2006). In view of all these findings, HDACs may be better called ‘N-epsilon-lysine deacetylase’. This designation would also distinguish them from the enzymes that catalyse other types of deacetylation in biological reactions, such as acylases that catalyse the deacetylation of a range of N-acetyl amino acids (Anders and Dekant, 1994).
Non-histone protein targets of HDACs include transcription factors, transcription regulators, signal transduction mediators, DNA repair enzymes, nuclear import regulators, chaperone proteins, structural proteins, inflammation mediators and viral proteins (Table 1). Acetylation can either increase or decrease the function or stability of the proteins, or protein–protein interaction (Glozak et al., 2005). These HDAC substrates are directly or indirectly involved in many biological processes, such as gene expression and regulation of pathways of proliferation, differentiation and cell death. These data suggest that HDACi could have multiple mechanisms of inducing cell growth arrest and cell death (Figure 1).
Figure 1. Full figure and legend (90K)
Multiple HDACi-activated antitumor pathways. See text for detailed explanation of each pathway. HDAC6, histone deacetylase 6; HIF-1, hypoxia-induced factor-1; HSP90, heat-shock protein 90; PP1, protein phosphatase 1; ROS, reactive oxygen species; TBP2, thioredoxin binding protein 2; Trx, thioredoxin; VEGF, vascular endothelial growth factor.
http://www.nature.com/onc/journal/v26/n37/images/1210620f1.jpg
HDACi have been discovered with different structural characteristics, including hydroximates, cyclic peptides, aliphatic acids and benzamides (Table 2) (Miller et al., 2003; Yoshida et al., 2003; Marks and Breslow, 2007). Certain HDACi may selectively inhibit different HDACs. For example, MS-275 preferentially inhibits HDAC1 with IC50, at 0.3 m, compared to HDAC3 with an IC50 of about 8 m, and has little or no inhibitory effect against HDAC6 and HDAC8 (Hu et al., 2003). Two novel synthetic compounds, SK7041 and SK7068, preferentially target HDAC1 and 2 and exhibit growth inhibitory effects in human cancer cell lines and tumor xenograft models (Kim et al., 2003a). A small molecule, tubacin, selectively inhibits HDAC6 activity and causes an accumulation of acetylated -tubulin, but does not affect acetylation of histones, and does not inhibit cell cycle progression (Haggarty et al., 2003). No other HDACi for a specific HDAC has been reported.
HDACi selectively alters gene expression
HDACi-induced antitumor pathways
- HDACi induces cell cycle arrest
- HDACi activates the extrinsic apoptotic pathways
- HDACi activates the intrinsic apoptotic pathways
- HDACi induces mitotic cell death
- HDACi induces autophagic cell death and senescence
- ROS, thioredoxin and Trx binding protein 2 in HDACi-induced cell death
- Antitumor effects of HDAC6 inhibition
- Activation of protein phosphatase 1
- Disruption of the function of chaperonin HSP90
- Disruption of the aggresome pathway
- HDACi inhibits angiogenesis
HDACi can block tumor angiogenesis by inhibition of hypoxia inducible factors (HIF) (Liang et al., 2006). HIF-1 and HIF-2 are transcription factors for angiogenic genes (Brown and Wilson, 2004). The oxygen level can control HIF activity through two mechanisms. First, under normoxic conditions, HIF-1 binds to von Hippel–Lindau protein (pVHL) and is degraded by the ubiquitination–proteasome system. Second, HIF activity depends on its transactivation potential (TAP), which is affected by the interaction with the coactivator p300/CBP among others. This complex can be disrupted by Factor Inhibiting HIF (FIH). Hypoxic conditions activate HIF through repression of the hydroxylases responsible for HIF degradation and loss of function.
Combination of HDACi with other antitumor agents
The HDACi have shown synergistic or additive antitumor effects with a wide range of antitumor reagents, including chemotherapeutic drugs, new targeted therapeutic reagents and radiation, by various mechanisms, some unique for particular combinations (Rosato and Grant, 2004; Bhalla, 2005; Marks and Dokmanovic, 2005; Bolden et al., 2006).
Clinical development of HDACi
At least 14 different HDACi are in some phase of clinical trials as monotherapy or in combination with retinoids, taxols, gemcitabine, radiation, etc, in patients with hematologic and solid tumors, including cancer of lung, breast, pancreas, renal and bladder, melanoma, glioblastoma, leukemias, lymphomas, multiple myeloma (see National Cancer Institute website for CTEP clinical trials, ctep.cancer.gov or clinicaltrials.gov, and website of companies developing HDACi; Table 2).
The resistance to HDACi
Conclusions and perspectives
HDACs have multiple substrates involved in many biological processes, including proliferation, differentiation, apoptosis and other forms of cell death. Indeed, the fact that HDACs have histone and multiple nonhistone protein substrates suggests these enzymes should be referred to as ‘lysine deacetylases’. HDACi can cause transformed cells to undergo growth arrest, differentiation and/or cell death. Normal cells are relatively resistant to HDACi. HDACi are selective in altering gene expression, which may reflect, in part, the proteins composing the transcription factor complex to which HDACs are recruited. Both altered gene expression and changes in non-histone proteins caused by HDACi-induced acetylation play a role in the antitumor activity of HDACi. This is reflected in the different inducer-activated antitumor pathways in transformed cells (Figure 1). The functions of HDACs are not redundant. Thus, a pan-HDAC inhibitor such as vorinostat may activate more antitumor pathways and have therapeutic advantages compared to HDAC isotype-specific inhibitors.
Almost all cancers have multiple defects in the expression and/or structure of proteins that regulate cell proliferation and death. Compared to other antitumor reagents, the plurality of action of HDACi potentially confers efficacy in a wide spectrum of cancers, which have heterogeneity and multiple defects, both among different types of cancer and within different individual tumors of the same type. The multiple defects in a cancer cell may be the reason for transformed cells being more sensitive than normal cells to HDACi. Thus, given the relatively rapid reversibility of vorinostat inhibition of HDACs, normal cells may be able to compensate for HDACi-induced changes more effectively than cancer cells.
HDACi have synergistic or additive antitumor effects with many other antitumor reagents – suggesting that combination of HDACi and other anticancer agents may be very attractive therapeutic strategies for using these agents. Complete understanding of the mechanisms underlying the resistance and sensitivity to HDACi has obvious therapeutic importance. Targeting resistant factors will enhance the antitumor efficacy of HDACi. Identifying markers that can predict response to HDACi is a high priority for expanding the efficacy of these novel anticancer agents.
References ….
NEWS AND VIEWS Blocking HDACs boosts regulatory T cells
Nature Medicine News and Views (01 Nov 2007)
RESEARCH
Dimethyl sulfoxide to vorinostat: development of this histone deacetylase inhibitor as an anticancer drug
Nature Biotechnology Research (01 Jan 2007)
Comments of reviewer:
The complexity of cancer has been known for almost a century, in large part from the seminal work of Otto Warburg in the 1920s using manometry, and following the work of Louis Pasteur 60 years earlier with fungi.
The volume of work and our unlocking of mitotic activity, apoptosis, mitochondria, and the cytoskeleton has taken us further into the cell interior, cell function, metabolic regulation, and pathophysiology. Despite the enormous contributions to our knowledge of genomics, there is a large body of work in pathways of cell function that resides in no small part in activity of protein catalysts and enzymes.
The work that has been described covers only cyclic dinucleotides and HDACi’s. Some of the activities described have relevance to microorganisms as well as cancer. As we have seen, blocking HDACs boosts the activity of regulatory T-cells. There are many specific functional alterations elucidated above.
The first presentation is of an antibody that blocks an immune suppressor called CTLA4, antibodies that block another immune suppressor, PD1. This also involves a protein in cells that responds to foreign DNA to launch an innate immune response — the first response of the body’s immune system. The protein, dubbed STING, is triggered by small molecules called cyclic di-nucleotides (CDN), and makes immune cells release interferon and other cytokines that activate disease-fighting T cells and stimulate the production of antibodies that together kill invading pathogens and destroy cancer cells. Listeria bacteria, for example, secrete a CDN directly into infected cells that activates STING.
The second is resident in acetylation status of histones and non-histone proteins is determined by histone deacetylases (HDACs) and histone acetyl-transferases (HATs). HATs add acetyl groups to lysine residues, while HDACs remove the acetyl groups. In general, acetylation of histone promotes a more relaxed chromatin structure, allowing transcriptional activation. HDACs can act as transcription repressors, due to histone deacetylation, and consequently promote chromatin condensation. HDAC inhibitors (HDACi) selectively alter gene transcription, in part, by chromatin remodeling and by changes in the structure of proteins in transcription factor complexes (Gui et al., 2004). The description focuses on the molecular mechanisms triggered by inhibitors of zinc-dependent HDACs in tumor cells that explain in part: (I) the effects of these compounds in inducing transformed cell death and (II) the relative resistance of normal and certain cancer cells to HDACi induced cell death.
HDACs have multiple substrates involved in many biological processes, including proliferation, differentiation, apoptosis and other forms of cell death. Indeed, the fact that HDACs have histone and multiple nonhistone protein substrates suggests these enzymes should be referred to as ‘lysine deacetylases’. HDACi can cause transformed cells to undergo growth arrest, differentiation and/or cell death. Normal cells are relatively resistant to HDACi. HDACi are selective in altering gene expression, which may reflect, in part, the proteins composing the transcription factor complex to which HDACs are recruited. Both altered gene expression and changes in non-histone proteins caused by HDACi-induced acetylation play a role in the antitumor activity of HDACi.
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