Abstract. Isostrychnopentamine (ISP) is an indolomonoterpenic alkaloid that is present in the leaves of Strychnos usambarensis, an East African small tree. We have reported previously pro-apoptotic effects induced in vitro by ISP in the human HCT-116 colon cancer cell line, a model that displays relative sensitivity to apoptosis. In the present study, we observed that the in vitro growth inhibitory activities of ISP are similar in cancer cells that display sensitivity versus resistance to apoptosis. We made use of the U373 glioblastoma and the A549 non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) cell lines as models relatively resistant to apoptosis, and the human PC-3 prostate cancer cell line as a model relatively sensitive to apoptosis. While ISP induced transient decreases in [ATP] i and apoptosis in human U373 GBM cells, it did not provoke such features in A549 NSCLC cells. It thus seems that ISPinduced anti-cancer activity can lead to pro-apoptotic effects as a consequence, while apoptosis seems not to be the main cause by which ISP induces cancer cell death. ISP is a compound that merits further investigations in order to: i) identify the mechanism(s) of action by which it kills cancer cells, and ii) hemisynthesize novel ISP derivatives aiming to overcome, at least partly, the resistance of metastatic cancers to apoptosis.
IntroductionDespite frequent responses to chemotherapy, curative treatment remains elusive for the majority of patients with metastatic solid tumors (1). Indeed, in the common advanced cancers, over 40 years of cytotoxic drug development has brought no significant change in cure rates (1). Savage and colleagues (1) report that one interpretation is that the intrinsic properties of the malignancies themselves, rather than the qualities of individual drugs or combination therapies, are primarily responsible for their curability with chemotherapy. These authors thus suggest that the curability of these malignancies results from an intrinsic 'locked-in' state of sensitivity to proapoptotic stresses in these cells (1). In fact, >90% of cancer patients die from their metastases (2). Drug resistance, either acquired or intrinsic, often prevents tumor cells from undergoing sufficient levels of apoptosis, resulting in cancer cell survival and treatment failure (1,2). The metastatic process is inherent to a significant level of resistance to apoptosis. Indeed, as a barrier to metastases, cells normally undergo apoptosis after they lose contact with their extra cellular matrix or their neighboring cells (3). This cell death process has been termed 'anoikis' (3). Tumor cells that acquire malignant potential have developed mechanisms to resist anoikis and thereby survive after detachment from their primary site and while travelling through the lymphatic and circulatory systems (3). Defects in the death receptor pathway of caspase activation, such as the over-expression of the caspase-8 inhibitor FLIP, can render cells resistant to anoïkis (3).Plants have played a dominant role in the development of sophisticate...