Copper Increases the Sensitivity of Cholangiocarcinoma Cells to Tripterine by Inhibiting TMX2-Mediated Unfolded Protein Reaction Activation

  • Adv Healthc Mater. 2023 Apr 29;e2300913. doi: 10.1002/adhm.202300913.
Hongwen Liu  1 Lei Xu  1 Yiyang Zhang  1 Yiqiong Xie  2 Lishan Wang  3 Yue Zhou  1 Zhangding Wang  1 Yani Pan  1 Wenying Li  3 Lu Xu  2 Xinyun Xu  4 Ting Wang  4 Kui Meng  4 Jian He  5 Yudong Qiu  6 Guifang Xu  1  3 Weihong Ge  2  7 Yun Zhu  1  2  7 Lei Wang  1  3
Affiliations
  • 1. Department of Gastroenterology, Nanjing Drum Tower Hospital, The Affiliated Hospital of Nanjing University Medical School, Nanjing, Jiangsu Province, 210008, P. R. China.
  • 2. Department of Pharmacy, Nanjing Drum Tower Hospital Clinical College of Traditional Chinese and Western Medicine, Nanjing University of Chinese Medicine, Nanjing, Jiangsu Province, 21008, P. R. China.
  • 3. Department of Gastroenterology, Nanjing Drum Tower Hospital Clinical College of Traditional Chinese and Western Medicine, Nanjing University of Chinese Medicine, Nanjing, Jiangsu Province, 21008, P. R. China.
  • 4. Department of Pathology, Nanjing Drum Tower Hospital, The Affiliated Hospital of Nanjing University Medical School, Nanjing, Jiangsu Province, 210008, P. R. China.
  • 5. Department of Nuclear Medicine, Nanjing Drum Tower Hospital, The Affiliated Hospital of Nanjing University Medical School, Nanjing, Jiangsu Province, 210008, P. R. China.
  • 6. Department of Hepatopancreatobiliary Surgery, Nanjing Drum Tower Hospital, The Affiliated Hospital of Nanjing University Medical School, Nanjing, Jiangsu Province, 210008, P. R. China.
  • 7. Nanjing Medical Center for Clinical Pharmacy, Nanjing, Jiangsu Province, 210008, P. R. China.
Abstract

Chemotherapy-induced adaptive resistance is a significant factor that contributes to low therapeutic efficacy in tumor cells. The unfolded protein response (UPR) is a key mechanism in the development of drug resistance and serves as a critical reactive system for endoplasmic reticulum stress. Cu(II) can reduce the abundance of 60S ribosomal subunits and inhibit rRNA processing, leading to a decrease in the translation efficiency of the GRP78/BiP mRNA, which serves as a primary sensor for UPR activation. In this study, CuET-Lipid@Cela, composed of CuET and tripterine (Cela), demonstrated a significant synergistic antitumor effect on cholangiocarcinoma (CCA) cells. RNA-Seq was used to investigate the underlying mechanism, which suggests that the TMX2 gene may be crucial in Cu(II) regulation of UPR by inhibiting the activation of GRP78/BiP and PERK/eIF2α. The synergistic antitumor efficacy of CuET-Lipid@Cela via inhibition of TMX2 was also confirmed in a myrAKT/YapS127A plasmid-induced primary CCA mouse model, providing new insights into the reversal of acquired chemotherapy-induced resistance in CCA. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Keywords
Chemotherapy resistance; Cholangiocarcinoma; Cu (II); Mitochondrial dysfunction; TMX2; Tripterine; Unfolded protein reaction.
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