Sensitizing endometrial cancer to ionizing radiation by multi-tyrosine kinase inhibition

OBJECTIVE: Endometrial carcinoma is the most frequent gynecological cancer. About 15% of these cancers are of high risk and radiotherapy still remains the most suitable treatment. In this context, agents able to promote radiosensitization are of great interest. Here, we describe for the first time the radiosensitization ability of sunitinib in endometrial carcinoma. METHODS: Four endometrial carcinoma cell lines were used for the study. The activation of apoptosis signalling pathways and tyrosine kinase receptors were analysed by Western blot, luciferase assays and Immunoprecipitation. Radiosensitization effects were assessed using clonogenic assays. p65 and phosphatase and tensin homolog (PTEN) were upregulated by lentiviral transduction. RESULTS: We discovered that ionizing radiation activates the pro-oncogenic proteins and signalling pathways KIT, protein kinase B (AKT), and nuclear factor kappa B (NF-κB) and these activations were abrogated by sunitinib, resulting in a radiosensitization effect. We found out that AKT pathway is greatly involved in this process as PTEN restoration in the PTEN-deficient cell line RL95-2 is sufficient to inhibit AKT, rendering these cells more susceptible to ionizing radiation and sunitinib-induced radiosensitization. In Ishikawa 3-H-12 cells, radiosensitization effects and inhibition of AKT were achieved by PTEN restoration plus treatment with the phosphoinositide-3-kinase inhibitor LY294002. This suggests that endometrial tumors could have different sensitivity degree to radiotherapy and susceptibility to sunitinib-induced radiosensitization depending on their AKT activation levels. CONCLUSIONS: Our results provide the rationale of using sunitinib as neoadjuvant treatment prior radiotherapy which could be a starting point for the implementation of sunitinib and radiotherapy in the clinic for the treatment of recalcitrant endometrial cancers.