1. Academic Validation
  2. A novel small molecule that kills a subset of MLL-rearranged leukemia cells by inducing mitochondrial dysfunction

A novel small molecule that kills a subset of MLL-rearranged leukemia cells by inducing mitochondrial dysfunction

  • Oncogene. 2019 May;38(20):3824-3842. doi: 10.1038/s41388-018-0666-5.
Klaartje Somers 1 Victoria W Wen 1 Shiloh M C Middlemiss 1 Brenna Osborne 2 Helen Forgham 1 3 MoonSun Jung 1 Mawar Karsa 1 Molly Clifton 1 Angelika Bongers 1 Jixuan Gao 1 Chelsea Mayoh 1 Newsha Raoufi-Rad 1 Eric P Kusnadi 4 Kate M Hannan 5 David A Scott 6 Alan Kwek 1 Bing Liu 1 Claudia Flemming 1 Daria A Chudakova 1 Ruby Pandher 1 Tim W Failes 1 7 James Lim 1 Andrea Angeli 8 Andrei L Osterman 6 Toshihiko Imamura 9 Ursula R Kees 10 Claudiu T Supuran 8 Richard B Pearson 4 Ross D Hannan 5 Thomas P Davis 11 12 Joshua McCarroll 1 3 Maria Kavallaris 1 3 Nigel Turner 2 Andrei V Gudkov 13 14 Michelle Haber 1 Murray D Norris 1 15 Michelle J Henderson 16
Affiliations

Affiliations

  • 1 Children's Cancer Institute, Lowy Cancer Research Centre, UNSW, Randwick, NSW, Australia.
  • 2 Mitochondrial Bioenergetics Laboratory, School of Medical Sciences, UNSW, Randwick, NSW, Australia.
  • 3 ARC Centre of Excellence in Convergent Bio-Nano Science and Technology, Australian Centre for NanoMedicine, UNSW Australia, Sydney, NSW, Australia.
  • 4 Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, Melbourne, VIC, Australia.
  • 5 The John Curtin School of Medical Research, The Australian National University, Canberra City, ACT, Australia.
  • 6 Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute, La Jolla, CA, 92037, USA.
  • 7 ACRF Drug Discovery Centre, Children's Cancer Institute, Lowy Cancer Research Centre, UNSW, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
  • 8 Neurofarba Department, University of Florence, Florence, Italy.
  • 9 Department of Pediatrics, Kyoto Prefectural University of Medicine, Kyoto, Japan.
  • 10 Telethon Kids Institute, University of Western Australia, Perth, WA, Australia.
  • 11 ARC Centre of Excellence in Convergent Bio-Nano Science and Technology Monash Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Monash University, Clayton, VIC, Australia.
  • 12 Department of Chemistry, University of Warrick, Coventry, UK.
  • 13 Department of Cell Stress Biology, Roswell Park Cancer Institute, Buffalo, NY, USA.
  • 14 Oncotartis, Inc., Buffalo, NY, USA.
  • 15 UNSW Centre for Childhood Cancer Research, Sydney, NSW, Australia.
  • 16 Children's Cancer Institute, Lowy Cancer Research Centre, UNSW, Randwick, NSW, Australia. mhenderson@ccia.unsw.edu.au.
Abstract

Survival rates for pediatric patients suffering from mixed lineage leukemia (MLL)-rearranged leukemia remain below 50% and more targeted, less toxic therapies are urgently needed. A screening method optimized to discover cytotoxic compounds selective for MLL-rearranged leukemia identified CCI-006 as a novel inhibitor of MLL-rearranged and CALM-AF10 translocated leukemias that share common leukemogenic pathways. CCI-006 inhibited mitochondrial respiration and induced mitochondrial membrane depolarization and Apoptosis in a subset (7/11, 64%) of MLL-rearranged leukemia cell lines within a few hours of treatment. The unresponsive MLL-rearranged leukemia cells did not undergo mitochondrial membrane depolarization or Apoptosis despite a similar attenuation of mitochondrial respiration by the compound. In comparison to the sensitive cells, the unresponsive MLL-rearranged leukemia cells were characterized by a more glycolytic metabolic phenotype, exemplified by a more pronounced sensitivity to glycolysis inhibitors and elevated HIF1α expression. Silencing of HIF1α expression sensitized an intrinsically unresponsive MLL-rearranged leukemia cell to CCI-006, indicating that this pathway plays a role in determining sensitivity to the compound. In addition, unresponsive MLL-rearranged leukemia cells expressed increased levels of MEIS1, an important leukemogenic MLL target gene that plays a role in regulating metabolic phenotype through HIF1α. MEIS1 expression was also variable in a pediatric MLL-rearranged ALL patient dataset, highlighting the existence of a previously undescribed metabolic variability in MLL-rearranged leukemia that may contribute to the heterogeneity of the disease. This study thus identified a novel small molecule that rapidly kills MLL-rearranged leukemia cells by targeting a metabolic vulnerability in a subset of low HIF1α/low MEIS1-expressing MLL-rearranged leukemia cells.

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