Everolimus inhibits breast cancer cell growth through PI3K/AKT/mTOR signaling pathway.

Breast cancer is one of the most prevalent malignancies and the leading cause of cancer‑associated mortality in women worldwide and in China. Everolimus (C53H83NO14) is an efficient anti-cancer drug for breast cancer which targets mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR). The present study investigated the inhibitory effects of everolimus on breast cancer cells and an MCF‑7‑bearing mouse model. The potential mechanism of the everolimus‑mediated decrease in growth and aggressiveness of breast cancer cells was reported. Results demonstrated that everolimus significantly inhibited breast cancer cell growth, migration and invasion. It was demonstrated that everolimus induced apoptosis through decreasing B cell lymphoma (Bcl)‑2 and Bcl‑w and increasing caspase‑3 and caspase‑8 expression levels in breast cancer cells. It was observed that everolimus decreased phosphoinositide 3‑kinase (PI3K), protein kinase B (AKT) and mTOR expression levels in breast cancer cells. Results additionally demonstrated that PI3 K overexpression prevented that everolimus‑mediated inhibition of growth and aggressiveness in MCF‑7 cells. In vivo assays demonstrated that everolimus treatment markedly inhibited tumor growth in the MCF‑7 bearing mouse model. Overall, these data indicate that everolimus inhibits growth and aggressiveness of breast cancer cells through the PI3K/AKT/mTOR signaling pathways, suggesting the PI3K/AKT/mTOR signaling pathway may act as a therapeutic target for the treatment of human cancer.

Introduction

Breast cancer is epithelial malignant tumors occurred in the mammary gland that has become significant threat to women's physical and mental health (1,2). Clinical investigations have indicated that 5-year overall survival is poor, and breast carcinoma with young women is growing, whom is frequently metastatic (3,4). A review of the literature and a current multidisciplinary management guideline for breast cancer metastases has been summarized that provided therapeutic strategies to improve the progression-free survival (5,6). Currently, although surgery, radiotherapy, chemotherapy, Chinese medicine treatment, biotherapy, target therapy and other comprehensive treatments for human breast cancer have been explored for breast cancer patients, the 5-year overall survival is still poor (7–9). Therefore, emerging studies and efficient treatments for breast cancer are required to explain the mechanism, identify new therapeutic strategies and improve survival rate for clinical patients.

Everolimus (C53H83NO14) is an efficient anti-cancer drug for human breast cancer (10). Evidences have showed that everolimus plus exemestane showed efficient anticancer therapy in postmenopausal patients with hormone receptor-positive [HR(+)] breast cancer, which further supported the use of everolimus plus exemestane in this patient population (11). Clinical prognostic factors associated with therapeutic efficacy for patients after received everolimus immunotherapy prolonged the overall survival determined by available clinical parameters (12). A study has indicated that everolimus was generally well tolerated in elderly patients with HR(+) advanced breast cancer (13). Another study has showed that everolimus to hormonal treatment or anti-HER2 treatment improved the outcomes of breast cancer patients via the activation of the mTOR pathway (14). These reports suggest that everolimus can lead to reduction of breast cancer trough regulation of tumor-related molecular signal pathways in breast cancer cells.

In this study, we analyzed the inhibitory effects of everolimus, as well as investigated the potential molecular mechanism mediated by everolimus in breast cancer cells. We reported the efficacy of everolimus on growth, aggressiveness, apoptosis and PI3K/AKT/mTOR signaling pathways in breast cancer cells. We have explored the mechanism of induction of inhibition by a previously reported cytotoxic everolimus for breast cancer both in vitro and in vivo.

Materials and methods

Ethics statement

This study was carried out in strict accordance with the recommendations in the Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals of Animal Protection Society (Beijing, China). The study was approved by Ethics Committee of Xingtai First Hospital (permit no. 132746). All surgery and euthanasia were performed under sodium pentobarbital anesthesia (50 mg/kg), and all efforts were made to minimize suffering.

Cells culture

MCF-7 and BT474 cells were purchased from American Type Culture Collection (ATCC; Manassas, VA, USA). All cells were cultured in RPMI-1640 (Invitrogen, Carlsbad, CA, USA) medium supplemented with 10% heat-inactivated fetal bovine serums (FBS; Gibco; Thermo Fisher Scientific, Inc., Waltham, MA, USA) 3 mM L-glutamine, 50 µg/ml gentamicin (Biowhittaker) and 1% penicillin/streptomycin. Cells were cultured at 37°C and 5% CO2 culture temperature.

Cell viability assay

The tumor cell viability was assessed by using Cell Counting Kit-8 (CCK-8; Beyotime Institute of Biotechnology, Shanghai, China) according to the manufacturer's instructions. MCF-7 and BT474 cells (1×103) were seeded into 96-well plates and added everolimus (5 mg/ml; Sigma-Aldrich; Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany) for 48 h. CCK-8 reagent was added into wells a before the endpoint of incubation (3 h). Cells viability was analyzed by a microplate reader (Bio-Rad Laboratories, Inc., Hercules, CA, USA) at 450 nm.

Overexpression of PI3K

MCF-7 cells were cultured until 85% confluence and the media was then removed and washed three times with phosphate-buffered saline (PBS). MCF-7 cells were transfected by pedue12.4-PI3K (pPI3K) using Lipofectamine 2000 (Sigma-Aldrich; Merck KGaA) according to the manufacturer's instructions. Sable PI3K-overexpression MCF-7 cells were selected by GS screening system (15).

MTT assay

BT474, sable PI3K-overexpressed MCF-7 and MCF-7 cells were cultured in 96-well plates and treated with everolimus (5 mg/ml) for 48 h in triplicate at 37°C. After incubation, 20 µl of MTT (5 mg/ml) in PBS solution was added and further incubated for 4 h. The OD was measured by a Bio-Rad (ELISA) reader at wavelength of 450 nm.

Cell invasion and migration assays

MCF-7 and BT474 cells were treated with everolimus (5 mg/ml) and cultured for 48 h. Migration and invasion of MCF-7 and BT474 cells was conducted in a 6-well culture plate with chamber inserts (BD Biosciences, San Jose, CA, USA). For migration assays, 1×104/well concentration of the MCF-7 and BT474 cells were placed into the upper chamber. For invasion assays, MCF-7 and BT474 cells (1×104/well) were placed into the upper chamber with the Matrigel-coated membrane. Migration and invasion of MCF-7 and BT474 cells were counted in at least three randomly stain-field microscope every membrane.

Apoptosis assay

MCF-7 and BT474 cells were grown at 37°C with 5% CO2 until 90% confluences was reached. Apoptosis was assessed by incubation these cells with everolimus (5 mg/ml) for 48 h. After incubation, the tumor cells were trypsinized and collected. The cells were then washed in cold PBS, adjusted to 1×106 cells/ml with PBS, labeled with Annexin V-FITC and PI (Annexin V-FITC kit; BD Biosciences), and analyzed with a FACScan flow cytometer (BD Biosciences). The treatments were performed in triplicate, and the percentage of labeled cells undergoing apoptosis in each group was determined and calculated.

Western blot analysis

MCF-7 and BT474 cells were harvested by scraping and lysed in RIPA buffer followed homogenized at 4°C for 10 min. Protein were analyzed by SDS-PAGE assays followed transfer membrane. Protein were incubated with rabbit anti-human Bcl-2 (1:400, ab32124), Bcl-w (1:500, ab2568), caspase-3 (1:500, ab217), caspase-8 (1:400, ab25901), PI3K (1:400, ab86714), AKT (1:400, ab8805), mTOR (1:400, ab2732), and β-actin (1:400, ab5694) (Abcam, Shanghai, China) for 12 h at 4°C. The HRP-labeled secondary goat anti-rabbit antibodies (1:5,000; Abcam) were incubated and performed to analysis the proteins expression by using using chemiluminescence detection system.

Cell cycle assay

The MCF-7 and BT474 cells treated by everolimus (5 mg/ml) and were inoculated in 6-well plates and cultured for 48 h. The cells were washed with ice-cold PBS three times and fixed in ice-cold ethanol solution (100%) for 12 h at 4°C. The cells were analyzed by flow cytometry using cell cycle analysis kit (Sigma-Aldrich; Merck KGaA). The cell cycle G0/G1 and S phase in MCF-7 and BT474 cells was analyzed using ModFit LT version 4.0 software.

Animal study

Specific pathogen-free (SPF) female Balb/c mice (6–8 weeks old; body weight, 30–32 g) were purchased from Shanghai Slack Experimental Animals Co., Ltd. (Shanghai, China). Mice were subcutaneously implanted MCF-7 cells (1×107 cells) and were divided into two groups (n=20). Mice were maintained at a 12 h light/dark cycle with free access to diet and water. Treatments were initiated on day 5 after tumor implantation (diameter, 5–8 mm). Tumor-bearing mice were intravenously injected everolimus (5 mg/kg) as PBS as control. Tumor volume was calculated by using the formula: 0.52 × smallest diameter2 × largest diameter. The mice were sacrificed on day 50 for further analysis.

Immunohistochemistry

The paraffin-embedded xenograft tumor tissues were cut into serial 4-µm-thick sections. Antigen was retrieved by heating the tissue sections at 100°C for 30 min in a citrate solution (10 mmol/l; pH 6.0) followed by dewaxing in xylene, rehydrating and grading in ethanol solutions. Then tumor sections were immersed in 0.3% hydrogen peroxide solution to inhibit endogenous peroxidase activity in tumor cells. Subsequently, the tumor sections were incubated with rabbit anti-human PI3K (1:400, ab86714), AKT (1:400, ab8805), mTOR (1:400, ab2732), respectively, at 4°C overnight. Finally, tumor sections were incubated with HRP-labeled goat anti-rabbit secondary antibody, and the diaminobenzene was used as the chromogen and hematoxylin as the nuclear counterstain. The results were visualized by using chemiluminescence detection system (Amersham Biosciences, Piscataway, NJ, USA).

TUNEL assay

Apoptosis-positive cells in tumor sections was also determined by a terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase biotin-dUTP nick end labeling (TUNEL) (Roche Diagnostics, Mannheim, Germany) assay according to the manufacturer's instructions. Tumor sections were fixed with 4% paraformaldehyde solution for 60 min at 4°C. Tumor sections were deparaffinized and rehydrated and settled in TDT enzyme and label solution (1:9) for 60 min. Subsequently, the tumor sections were then incubated with 50 µl of the reaction mixture at 37°C for 60 min and washed 3 times with PBS. The cells nuclei were stained with 4′,6-diamidino-2-phenylindole (DAPI) for 60 min at 4°C. The percentage of TUNEL-positive cells was calculated in at least 3 randomly selected fields viewed at ×400 magnification. Finally, tumor tissues images were captured with a Zeiss LSM 510 confocal microscope at 488 nm.

Statistical analyses

All results are presented as the mean ± SEM of triplicate data. Data were compared using the Student's t-test and a one-way analysis of variance. Statistical analyses were conducted using GraphPad Prism (GraphPad Software, Inc., San Diego, USA). P<0.05 was considered to indicate a statistically significant difference.

Results

Everolimus treatment significantly inhibits growth and aggressiveness of breast cancer cells

The inhibitory effects of everolimus on growth and aggressiveness of breast cancer cells were investigated in vitro. We demonstrated that everolimus (5 mg/ml) treatment significantly inhibited growth of MCF-7 and BT474 cells growth (Fig. 1A). Migration and invasion of MCF-7 and BT474 cells were suppressed by everolimus treatment compared to control (Fig. 1B and C). We observed that everolimus treatment decreased viability of MCF-7 and BT474 cells after 48-h incubation (Fig. 1D). These results indicate that everolimus treatment can significantly inhibit growth, migration and invasion of breast cancer cells.

Figure 1.

Everolimus inhibits growth and aggressiveness of breast cancer cells. (A) Everolimus inhibits growth of MCF-7 and BT474 cells growth. (B and C) Everolimus inhibits migration and invasion of (B) MCF-7 and BT474 cells growth. (D) Everolimus treatment decreases viability of MCF-7 and BT474 cells after 48 h incubation. **P<0.01 vs. control.

Everolimus treatment induces apoptosis and arrests cells cycle of breast cancer cells

Apoptosis and cell cycle were analyzed in everolimus-treated breast cancer cells in vitro. As shown in Fig. 2A, everolimus induced apoptosis rate of MCF-7 and BT474 cells after 48-h incubation compared to control. We demonstrated that everolimus induced apoptosis through decreasing Bcl-2 and Bcl-w in MCF-7 and BT474 cells (Fig. 2B). However, caspase-3 and caspase-8 expression levels were upregulated by everolimus in MCF-7 and BT474 cells (Fig. 2B). We observed that everolimus arrested cell cycle at G0/G1 and S phase in MCF-7 and BT474 cells (Fig. 2C and D). These results suggest that everolimus treatment can induce apoptosis and arrest cells cycle of breast cancer cells.

Figure 2.

Everolimus induces apoptosis and arrests cells cycle of breast cancer cells. (A) Everolimus induces apoptosis of MCF-7 and BT474 cells after 48 h incubation. (B) Everolimus decreases Bcl-2 and Bcl-w and increases caspase-3 and caspase-8 expression levels in MCF-7 and BT474 cells. (C and D) Everolimus arrests cell cycle at (C) G0/G1 and (D) S phase in MCF-7 and BT474 cells. **P<0.01 vs. control.

Everolimus treatment regulates growth of breast cancer cells via PI3K/AKT/mTOR signaling pathways

In order to analyze inhibition of breast cancer mediated by everolimus, we investigated changes of PI3K/AKT/mTOR signaling pathways in MCF-7 cells. We demonstrated that everolimus decreased PI3K, AKT and mTOR expression levels in MCF-7 cells (Fig. 3A). Phosphorylation levels of PI3K and AKT were also decreased by everolimus in MCF-7 cells (Fig. 3B). Overexpression of PI3K (ORPI3K) canceled everolimus-decreased (ORPI3K/EO) AKT and mTOR expression levels and phosphorylation levels of AKT in MCF-7 cells (Fig. 3C). Everolimus-inhibited growth was abolished by PI3K overexpression in MCF-7 cells (Fig. 3D). We also showed that PI3K overexpression relieved everolimus-inhibited migration and invasion of MCF-7 cells (Fig. 3E and F). These results indicate that everolimus treatment can regulate growth and aggressiveness of breast cancer cells through downregulation of PI3K/AKT/mTOR signaling pathways.

Figure 3.

Everolimus regulates growth of breast cancer cells via PI3K/AKT/mTOR signaling pathways. (A) Everolimus decreases PI3K, AKT and mTOR expression levels in MCF-7 cells. (B) Everolimus decreases phosphorylation levels of PI3K and AKT in MCF-7 cells. (C) Overexpression of PI3K (ORPI3K) cancels everolimus-decreased (ORPI3K/EO) AKT and mTOR expression levels and phosphorylation levels of AKT in MCF-7 cells. (D) ORPI3K cancels everolimus-inhibited growth of MCF-7 cells. (E and F) ORPI3K cancels everolimus-inhibited migration (E) and invasion (F) of MCF-7 cells. ORPI3K/EO, erolimus + PI3K overexpression. **P<0.01 vs. control.

In vivo efficacy of everolimus treatment for MCF-7-bearing mouse model

We further explored anti-cancer effects of everolimus in MCF-7-bearing mouse model. As shown in Fig. 4A, everolimus significantly inhibited tumor growth compared to PBS-treated mice. Immunohistology assays demonstrated that everolimus significantly downregulated PI3K, AKT and mTOR expression in tumor sections (Fig. 4B). TUNEL assay showed that everolimus increased numbers of apoptotic bodies in tumor sections compared to PBS-treated tumors (Fig. 4C). Notably, results showed that everolimus prolonged animals' survival in a 120-day observation (Fig. 4D). Body weight of experimental mice was analyzed after tumor exposing tumors on day 50. We showed that everolimus did not affect the body weight of experimental mice (Fig. 4E). These results suggest that everolimus treatment can inhibit tumor growth and prolong survival of MCF-7-bearing mouse model.

Figure 4.

In vivo efficacy of everolimus treatment for MCF-7-bearing mouse model. (A) Everolimus significantly inhibits tumor growth compared to PBS-treated mice. (B) Everolimus down-regulates PI3K, AKT and mTOR expression in tumor sections. (C) Everolimus promotes apoptosis of cells in tumor sections compared to PBS-treated tumors determined by TUNEL assay. (D) Everolimus prolongs animals' survival in a 120-day observation. (E) Effects of everolimus on body weight of experimental mice. **P<0.01 vs. control.

Discussion

The mTOR is a vital component of signaling pathways involving PI3K/AKT, which is an attractive therapeutic target in breast cancer (16,17). Everolimus has presented anti-breast cancer efficacy in early phase (16,18–20). It is crucial to analyze the potential mechanisms mediated by everolimus in breast carcinoma cells (21,22). In the present study, we reported the inhibitory efficacy of everolimus on growth, apoptosis and cell cycle for breast cancer cells. Results have showed that everolimus treatment inhibited growth of breast cancer cells and MCF-7-bearing mouse model. Findings in this study also indicate that PI3K/AKT/mTOR signaling pathways involved in everolimus-mediated inhibition of breast cancer progression.

Increasing apoptosis and arresting cell cycle of tumor cells play essential role in the treatment of human cancers (23,24). Everolimus can inhibit growth of gemcitabine-resistant pancreatic cancer cells through induction of caspase-dependent apoptosis and G2/M phase arrest (25). Interestingly, cytotoxic activity of everolimus in Caki-1 renal cancer cells is accompanied by modulations in the expression of apoptosis-related microRNA clusters and Bcl2 family genes (26). Our results reported that everolimus treatment decreased anti-apoptosis gene Bcl-2 and Bcl-w expression in breast cancer cells. Notably, everolimus induced dose-dependent changes to cell cycle regulation and modified the cell cycle response to enhance the cytotoxicity of bendamustine in multiple myeloma cells through a network of pro-apoptotic and cell-cycle-progression regulatory proteins (27,28). In this study, we found that everolimus not only induced apoptosis through regulation of apoptosis-related gene expression in breast cancer cells, but also arrested cell cycle at G0/G1 and S phase, which resulted in inhibition of breast cancer growth.

Everolimus has presented efficient inhibition in hormone receptor-positive advanced breast cancer by targeting receptor-based mechanisms of resistance (29). Clinical usefulness of PI3K/Akt/mTOR genotyping in companion with other clinical variables in metastatic renal cell carcinoma patients have been investigated after treatment with everolimus and results indicate that metastatic renal cell carcinoma treated with everolimus may be accompanied the components of PI3K/AKT/mTOR signal pathways (30). However, no further investigation prospectively reported and confirmed these findings in breast cancer cells. Leung et al have showed that everolimus presented inhibitory responses by dual mTORC1/2 inhibitors in cultured breast cancer cell lines (31). We reported that everolimus inhibited growth by arresting cell cycle at G0/G1 and S phase via mTOR pathway, which has not been investigated in previous study. An experimental study indicated that everolimus in combination with letrozole inhibited human breast cancer MCF-7/Aro stem cells growth via PI3K/mTOR pathway (32). Results in this study showed that everolimus inhibited human breast cancer cells growth via downregulation of PI3K/AKT/mTOR signaling pathways, which indicated the role of ATK in everolimus-mediated inhibition of breast cancer cells growth. Everolimus showed great clinical efficacy in combination with tamoxifen by inhibition of PI3K and mTOR, which may further improve therapy in ER(+) breast cancer cells via mitigation of compensatory AKT activation (33). Results in this study found that everolimus inhibited migration and invasion of MCF-7 cells via decreasing of PI3K/AKT/mTOR signaling pathways.

Many studies have presented anti-cancer safety and efficacy of everolimus in the treatment of breast cancer, which contributed to the treatment and pathological analysis for patients with breast carcinoma (34–36). In the present study, we reported that everolimus inhibited growth, induced apoptosis and arrested cell cycle of breast cancer cells. In vivo assays showed that everolimus inhibited breast tumor growth and prolonged survival of MCF-7-bearing mice. We also found that everolimus did not affect the body weight of experimental mice in a 40-day observation. However, the adverse effects of everolimus were not systematically analyzed to evaluate anticancer pharmacology. The methodological limitations of the present study are that we did not establish mouse breast cancer in situ tumor model. Therefore, the in vivo anti-metastasis efficacy of everolimus could not evaluate in experimental mice. Findings in the present study provided a precise mechanism by which everolimus treatment leads to suppress breast cancer cells growth and aggressiveness by regulation of PI3K/AKT/mTOR signaling pathways.