Luciano de S Santos, Valdenizia R Silva, Maria V L de Castro, Rosane B Dias, Ludmila de F Valverde, Clarissa A G Rocha, Milena B P Soares, Claudio A Quadros, Edjane R Dos Santos, Regina M M Oliveira, Rose M Carlos, Paulo C L Nogueira, Daniel P Bezerra
In this work, we describe a novel ruthenium-xanthoxylin complex, [Ru(phen)2 (xant)](PF6 ) (RXC), that can eliminate colorectal cancer (CRC) stem cells by targeting the chaperone Hsp90. RXC exhibits potent cytotoxicity in cancer cell lines and primary cancer cells, causing apoptosis in HCT116 CRC cells, as observed by cell morphology, YO-PRO-1/PI staining, internucleosomal DNA fragmentation, mitochondrial depolarization, and PARP cleavage (Asp214). Additionally, RXC can downregulate the HSP90AA1 and HSP90B1 genes and the expression of HSP90 protein, as well as the expression levels of its downstream/client elements Akt1, Akt (pS473), mTOR (pS2448), 4EBP1 (pT36/pT45), GSK-3β (pS9), and NF-κB p65 (pS529), implying that these molecular chaperones can be molecular targets for RXC...
December 15, 2023: Cell Death & Disease