Identification of GNE-317 reduces ovarian cancer cell proliferation in a dose-dependent manner
To identify small molecular compounds that inhibit ovarian cancer cell, we performed a anti-cancer metabolism library screening in SKOV3 cells and A2780 cells(Fig. 1A). Nine compounds exhibited the most effective compound in inhibiting both SKOV3 cells and A2780 cells according to our screening(Fig.1B).Since GNE-317 was one of the most effective compound among the nine compounds, moreover, GNE-317 has been used in multiple disease such as glioblastoma[21], breast cancer [19], Bladder Cancer[22], and melanoma brain metastasis[23]. It would be interest to repurpose GNE-317 as a ovarian cancer cell inhibitor(the chemical structure was shown in Fig. 1B). Then, we determined the the half-maximal inhibitory concentration (IC50) of GNE-317. As shown in Fig. 1C, the IC50 of GNE-317 was 0.25μM, respectively. In the next experiments, we chose 200nM, 500nM, and 1μM of GNE-317 to treat SKOV3. As shown in Fig 1D, A Cell Counting Kit-8 (CCK-8) proliferative assay demonstrated that GNE-317 dose-dependently decreased SKOV3 cell viability. The PI-FACS assay results showed that GNE-317 disrupted cell cycle progression, causing increased G1-phase cell percentage and decreased S/G2-phase cell percentage (Fig 1E). Moreover, GNE-317 dose-dependently increased the ratio of Trypan blue-positive (“dead”) ovarian cancer cells(Fig 1F).
GNE-317 induces ferroptosis in SKOV3 cells
Next, we analyzed by which way GNE-317 induced SKOV3 cell death.We tested whether GNE-317 could induce apoptosis in human ovarian cancer cells. Following GNE-317 treatment, the percentage of apoptosis cells increased significantly in ovarian cancer cells, indicating apoptosis activation(Fig 2A). Interestingly, GNE-317 treatment selectively enhanced sensitivity to erastin-induced ferroptosis but did not affect actinomycin D-induced autophagy(Fig 2B). Moreover, erastin-induced cell death that is promoted by GNE-317, was significantly blocked by the ferroptosis inhibitor ferrostatin-1, and liproxstatin-1(Fig 2C,D).
Ferroptosis is a distinctive form of regulated cell death that is driven by a lethal accumulation of lipid peroxides in plasma membranes[8].The BODIPY-C11 probe can specifically detect ferroptosis by determining the number of lipid peroxides in cellular membranes. Malondialdehyde (MDA) is the principal and most studied product of polyunsaturated fatty acid peroxidation. Therefore, we next used these compounds to verify if there was an elevation in the production of lipid peroxides and MDA in GNE-317 preincubated cells. The expressions of lipid ROS(Fig 2E) and MDA(Fig 2F) were increased in the GNE-317 treated group compared with the control group. Taken together, these data indicate that the GNE-317 increases cellular lipid peroxidation, and promotes OC cells sensitivity to ferroptosis.
GNE-317 reduces ovarian cancer cell proliferation in a ferroptosis-dependend way
To further elucidate whether the regulation of GNE-317 on ovarian cancer cells exerts its role via its impact on ferroptosis, a ferroptosis inhibitor-ferrostatin-1 was added for further verification. We conducted the verification of the cell function experiment. As depicted in Fig.2A, the addition of the ferrostatin-1 alleviated the retarded cell proliferation induced by GNE-317. After 48 hours of treatment, in comparison with the GNE-317 group, the survival rate of ovarian cancer in the GNE-317 plus ferrostatin-1 group significantly increased, and the mortality rate decreased to a certain extent (Fig.2B,C). The PI-FACS assay also revealed that the addition of the ferrostatin-1 could mitigate the G1 phase retention of ovarian cancer cells induced by GNE-317 (Fig.2D). Meanwhile, we carried out the cell clonal formation experiments. As shown in the Fig.2E, the addition of the ferrostatin-1 restored the decreased cell proliferation induced by GNE-317. The detection of MDA and BODIPY indicated that the ferrostatin-1 could notably restore the ferroptosis of ovarian cancer cells induced by GNE-317 (Fig.2F). JC-1 immunofluorescence staining demonstrated that JC-1 existed as a monomer in the coating plasma after the addition of GNE-317, presenting green fluorescence. The ferrostatin-1 was capable of effectively accumulating more JC-1 in the mitochondrial matrix and forming polymers(Fig.2G). These results indicate that the GNE-317 suppresses OC cells resistance to cell death by selectively enhancing their sensitivity to ferroptosis.
GPX4 is a potential target of GNE-317
Ferroptosis is a form of cell death dependent on ferrous ions and is characterized by the depletion of GSH and the inactivation of glutathione peroxidase 4 (GPX4)[24]. Inactivation of GPX4 ultimately results in overwhelming lipid peroxidation that causes cell death. Here we proposed that GNE-317 might target GPX4. The crystal structure of human GPX4 has been reported (PDB ID: 6HN3), therefore, we performing molecular docking analysis of GNE-317 and GPX4. As shown in Fig. 4A, The figure illustrates the formation of hydrogen bonds between GNE-317 and LYS-48, as well as GLY-47 on GPX4 proteins. These hydrogen bonds contribute to a tight binding of the proteins to small molecules. Furthermore, pi-pi conjugation occurs between TRP-136 on the small molecules and proteins, while hydrophobic interaction with LYS-48 and PRO-155 strengthens van der Waals energy. In this complex, the binding affinity score of GNE-317 and GPX4 was given by the docking software as -6.051 kcal/mol, indicating that GNE-317 was well bound to GPX4 protein. In Fig.4B, GPX4 was significantly down-regulated in malignant tumors of female reproductive system, including OV and UCEC. The strongest positive correlation was observed between the number of CD4+T cells, Neutrophil, Macrophage, DC cells and SYTL1 expression(Fig 4C). We further conducted a network analysis of GPX4 by using STRING. In Fig. 4D, the top ten functional partner genes were selected with a high degree of connectivity, including GRSF1, HSPAS, CHAC1, GSR, PRDX6, GSTP1, GSTO1, GSS, HPGDS, and GSTO2 (Table 1). In combination with enrichment analysis via KEGG, we found that they are enriched in the metabolism shown in Fig. Table 2. The analysis above indicated that GPX4 is a potential target of GNE-317.
Overexpression of GPX4 reverses GNE-317-induced ferroptosis and tumor repression in ovarian cancer cells
To further explore the role of GPX4 in GNE-317 regulation of ferroptosis and tumor proliferation, we generated GPX4-overexpression OC cells. Our results showed that GNE-317-mediated inhibition of tumorigenesis were relieved by GPX4 overexpression (Fig 5A, C). In addition, we examined the effect of GNE-317 on cell proliferation by PI-FACS. Compared with the control group, GNE-317 reduced the proliferation of SKOV3, and GPX4 overexpression could reverse this effect (Fig 5 B).The results of the clone formation experiments indicated that GNE-317 effectively suppressed cell proliferation, whereas overexpression of GPX4 abolished its inhibitory effect (Fig5D). Simultaneously, as shown in the Fig 5E, the overexpression of GPX4 notably decreased the JC-1 dimer induced by GNE-317.This result confirms that GPX4 plays a major role in GNE-317-mediated ferroptosis in ovarian cancer cells.
GNE-317 sensitizes OV cells to cisplatin
Chemotherapy is an important part of the standard treatment of ovarian cancer, and commonly used chemotherapy drugs include cisplatin and paclitaxel, but resistance to cisplatin has become increasingly challenging. Since previous studies showed that ferroptosis can be induced by chemotherapy [25, 26], our results also showed that cisplatin induction of cell death can be partially inhibited by the ferroptosis inhibitor ferrostatin-1 (Fig. 6A) and enhanced by the Erastin(Fig. 6B) . As expected, we observed an increase in MDA production and lipid ROS by cisplatin (Fig. 6D,E), indicating that cisplatin can induce ferroptosis in OC cells. Next, we investigated if GNE-317 regulated OC cells sensitivity to cisplatin. The stimulation of GNE-317 increased cisplatin-induced cell death (Fig. 6C). As shown in the Fig 6D,E, the addition of GNE-317 enhanced cisplatin induced ferroptosis in ovarian cancer cells, accompanied by increased MDA production and lipid ROS. In the JC-1 detection experiment, the JC-1 gathered in the mitochondrial matrix to form a polymer, and the polymer emitted strong red fluorescence in control group. After the addition of cisplatin, JC-1 can only exist in the cytoplasm as a monomer and produce green fluorescence, due to the decrease or loss of membrane potential. However, the cells in the GNE-317-cisplatin group exhibited stronger green fluorescence,which indicated that GNE-317 enhanced the ferroptosis of OC cells induced by cisplatin. These data above show that GNE-317-cisplatin combination has potent tumor inhibition capacities in OC.