Cetuximab and Cisplatin Show Different Combination Effect in Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma Cells Lines via Inactivation of EGFR/AKT Signaling Pathway.
Nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) is a common malignant cancer in South China. Cisplatin is a classical chemotherapeutic employed for NPC treatment. Despite the use of cisplatin-based concurrent chemoradiotherapy, distant failure still confuses clinicians and the outcome of metastatic NPC remains disappointing. Hence, a potent systemic therapy is needed for this cancer. Epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) represents a promising new therapeutic target in cancer. We predicted that combining the conventional cytotoxic drug cisplatin with the novel molecular-targeted agent cetuximab demonstrates a strong antitumor effect on NPC cells. In this study, we selected HNE1 and CNE2 cells, which have been proved to possess different EGFR expression levels, to validate our conjecture. The two-drug regimen showed a significant synergistic effect in HNE1 cells but an additive effect in CNE2 cells. Our results showed that cisplatin-induced apoptosis was significantly enhanced by cetuximab in the high EGFR-expressing HNE1 cells but not in CNE2 cells. Further molecular mechanism study indicated that the EGFR/AKT pathway may play an important role in cell apoptosis via the mitochondrial-mediated intrinsic pathway and lead to the different antitumor effects of this two-drug regimen between HNE1 and CNE2 cells. Thus, the regimen may be applied in personalized NPC treatments.
The Fourth Clinical School of Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing 210009, China; Department of Radiation Oncology, Nanjing Medical University Affiliated Jiangsu Cancer Hospital and Jiangsu Institute of Cancer Research, Nanjing 210009, China; Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Molecular and Translational Cancer Research, Nanjing, China.
Jiajia
J
Gu
The Fourth Clinical School of Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing 210009, China; Department of Radiation Oncology, Nanjing Medical University Affiliated Jiangsu Cancer Hospital and Jiangsu Institute of Cancer Research, Nanjing 210009, China; Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Molecular and Translational Cancer Research, Nanjing, China.
Li
L
Yin
Department of Radiation Oncology, Nanjing Medical University Affiliated Jiangsu Cancer Hospital and Jiangsu Institute of Cancer Research, Nanjing 210009, China.
Jing
J
Wu
The Fourth Clinical School of Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing 210009, China; Department of Radiation Oncology, Nanjing Medical University Affiliated Jiangsu Cancer Hospital and Jiangsu Institute of Cancer Research, Nanjing 210009, China; Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Molecular and Translational Cancer Research, Nanjing, China.
Nan
N
Zhang
The Fourth Clinical School of Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing 210009, China; Department of Radiation Oncology, Nanjing Medical University Affiliated Jiangsu Cancer Hospital and Jiangsu Institute of Cancer Research, Nanjing 210009, China; Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Molecular and Translational Cancer Research, Nanjing, China.
Teng
T
Huang
Department of Radiation Oncology, Nanjing Medical University Affiliated Jiangsu Cancer Hospital and Jiangsu Institute of Cancer Research, Nanjing 210009, China; Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Molecular and Translational Cancer Research, Nanjing, China; Xuzhou Medical College, Xuzhou 210009, China.
Kai
K
Ding
Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Molecular and Translational Cancer Research, Nanjing, China.
Haixia
H
Cao
Department of Thoracic Surgery, Nanjing Medical University Affiliated Jiangsu Cancer Hospital and Jiangsu Institute of Cancer Research, Nanjing 210009, China.
Lin
L
Xu
The Fourth Clinical School of Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing 210009, China; Department of Radiation Oncology, Nanjing Medical University Affiliated Jiangsu Cancer Hospital and Jiangsu Institute of Cancer Research, Nanjing 210009, China; Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Molecular and Translational Cancer Research, Nanjing, China; Xuzhou Medical College, Xuzhou 210009, China.
Xia
X
He