Effects of pharmacological and genetic disruption of CXCR4 chemokine receptor function in B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukaemia.

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Effects of pharmacological and genetic disruption of CXCR4 chemokine receptor function in B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukaemia.

Br J Haematol. 2016 Aug;174(3):425-36

Authors: Randhawa S, Cho BS, Ghosh D, Sivina M, Koehrer S, Müschen M, Peled A, Davis RE, Konopleva M, Burger JA

Abstract
B cell acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (B-ALL) cells express high levels of CXCR4 chemokine receptors for homing and retention within the marrow microenvironment. Bone marrow stromal cells (BMSC) secrete CXCL12, the ligand for CXCR4, and protect B-ALL cells from cytotoxic drugs. Therefore, the therapeutic use of CXCR4 antagonists has been proposed to disrupt cross talk between B-ALL cells and the protective stroma. Because CXCR4 antagonists can have activating agonistic function, we compared the genetic and pharmacological deletion of CXCR4 in B-ALL cells, using CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing and CXCR4 antagonists that are in clinical use (plerixafor, BKT140). Both genetic and pharmacological CXCR4 inhibition significantly reduced B-ALL cell migration to CXCL12 gradients and beneath BMSC, and restored drug sensitivity to dexamethasone, vincristine and cyclophosphamide. NOD/SCID/IL-2rγnull mice injected with CXCR4 gene-deleted B-ALL cells had significant delay in disease progression and superior survival when compared to control mice injected with CXCR4 wild-type B-ALL cells. These findings indicate that anti-leukaemia activity of CXCR4 antagonists is primarily due to CXCR4 inhibition, rather than agonistic activity, and corroborate that CXCR4 is an important target to overcome stroma-mediated drug resistance in B-ALL.

PMID: 27071778 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

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