Hodgkin lymphoma (HL) is neoplasia with high cure rates. However, not all patients can be cured with the current treatment. Chemo-resistance of tumor cells is one factor involved in treatment failure. In addition to its pore-forming activity on lipid bilayer membranes, the toxin melittin from bee venom is an inhibitor of several cancer-related signaling pathways. Moreover, melittin analogs have been shown to inhibit the activity of ATP binding cassette (ABC) transporters which are known to play important roles in the chemo-resistance of tumor cells. Therefore, we tested the toxicity of melittin for HL cell lines KM-H2 and L-428 and whether melittin can increase the chemo-sensitivity of cisplatin-resistant HL cells. We found high toxicity of melittin for KM-H2 and L-428 cells. In co-cultures with normal blood cells, melittin preferentially killed KM-H2 and L-428 cells. In addition, we observed increased cisplatin sensitivity of chemo-resistant L-428 cells after treatment with melittin. ABC transporter activity was not reduced after treatment with melittin. Our data suggest that melittin or melittin analogs might be promising agents for the future development of treatment strategies for HL patients with resistant disease.

Inhibition of the dual function cell cycle and transcription kinase CDK7 is known to affect the viability of cancer cells, but the mechanisms underlying cell line-specific growth control remain poorly understood. Here, we employed a previously developed, highly specific small molecule inhibitor that non-covalently blocks ATP binding to CDK7 (LDC4297) to study the mechanisms underlying cell line-specific growth using a panel of genetically heterogeneous human pancreatic tumor lines as model system. Although LDC4297 diminished both transcription rates and CDK T-loop phosphorylation in a comparable manner, some PDAC lines displayed significantly higher sensitivity than others. We focused our analyses on two well-responsive lines (Mia-Paca2 and Panc89) that, however, showed significant differences in their viability upon extended exposure to limiting LDC4297 concentrations. Biochemical and RNAseq analysis revealed striking differences in gene expression and cell cycle control. Especially the downregulation of a group of cell cycle control genes, among them CDK1/2 and CDC25A/C, correlated well to the observed viability differences in Panc89 versus Mia-Paca2 cells. A parallel downregulation of regulatory pathways supported the hypothesis of a feedforward programmatic effect of CDK7 inhibitors, eventually causing hypersensitivity of PDAC lines.