Small RNA could be breakthrough cancer treatment with a cancer kill switch

Small RNA molecules originally developed as a tool to study gene function trigger a mechanism hidden in every cell that forces the cell to commit suicide, reports a new Northwestern Medicine study, the first to identify molecules to trigger a fail-safe mechanism that may protect us from cancer.

The mechanism — RNA suicide molecules — can potentially be developed into a novel form of cancer therapy, the study authors said.

Cancer cells treated with the RNA molecules never become resistant to them because they simultaneously eliminate multiple genes that cancer cells need for survival.

“It’s like committing suicide by stabbing yourself, shooting yourself and jumping off a building all at the same time,” said Northwestern scientist and lead study author Marcus Peter. “You cannot survive.”

The inability of cancer cells to develop resistance to the molecules is a first, Peter said.

“This could be a major breakthrough,” noted Peter, the Tom D. Spies Professor of Cancer Metabolism at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and a member of the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center of Northwestern University.

Peter and his team discovered sequences in the human genome that when converted into small double-stranded RNA molecules trigger what they believe to be an ancient kill switch in cells to prevent cancer. He has been searching for the phantom molecules with this activity for eight years.

“We think this is how multicellular organisms eliminated cancer before the development of the adaptive immune system, which is about 500 million years old,” he said. “It could be a fail safe that forces rogue cells to commit suicide. We believe it is active in every cell protecting us from cancer.”

A large number of these small RNAs derived from certain genes did not, as expected, only suppress the gene they were designed against. They also killed all cancer cells. His team discovered these special sequences are distributed throughout the human genome, embedded in multiple genes as shown in the study in Cell Cycle.

When converted to siRNAs, these sequences all act as highly trained super assassins. They kill the cells by simultaneously eliminating the genes required for cell survival. By taking out these survivor genes, the assassin molecule activates multiple death cell pathways in parallel.

The small RNA assassin molecules trigger a mechanism Peter calls DISE, for Death Induced by Survival gene Elimination.

Activating DISE in organisms with cancer might allow cancer cells to be eliminated. Peter’s group has evidence this form of cell death preferentially affects cancer cells with little effect on normal cells.

To test this in a treatment situation, Peter collaborated with Dr. Shad Thaxton, associate professor of urology at Feinberg, to deliver the assassin molecules via nanoparticles to mice bearing human ovarian cancer. In the treated mice, the treatment strongly reduced the tumor growth with no toxicity to the mice.

“Our research may be tapping into one of nature’s original kill switches, and we hope the impact will affect many cancers,” he said. “Our findings could be disruptive.”

Octotarget – Induction of DISE in ovarian cancer cells in vivo

Abstract

The death receptor CD95/Fas can be activated by immune cells to kill cancer cells. shRNAs and siRNAs derived from CD95 or CD95 ligand (CD95L) are highly toxic to most cancer cells. We recently found that these sh/siRNAs kill cancer cells in the absence of the target by targeting the 3’UTRs of critical survival genes through canonical RNAi. We have named this unique form of off-target effect DISE (for death induced by survival gene elimination). DISE preferentially kills transformed cells and cancer stem cells. We demonstrate that DISE induction occurs in cancer cells in vivo after introducing a lentiviral CD95L derived shRNA (shL3) into HeyA8 ovarian cancer cells grown as i.p. xenografts in mice, when compared to a scrambled shRNA. To demonstrate the possibility of therapeutically inducing DISE, we coupled siRNAs to templated lipoprotein nanoparticles (TLP). In vitro, TLPs loaded with a CD95L derived siRNA (siL3) selectively silenced a biosensor comprised of Venus and CD95L ORF and killed ovarian cancer cells. In vivo, two siRNA-TLPs (siL2-TLP and siL3-TLP) reduced tumor growth similarly as observed for cells expressing the shL3 vector. These data suggest that it is possible to kill ovarian cancer cells in vivo via DISE induction using siRNA-TLPs.