Abstract
Oral Squamous Cell Carcinoma (OSCC) presents an important challenge for the health systems worldwide. Thus, unraveling the biological mechanisms involved in OSCC pathogenesis is essential to the discovery of new drugs with anticancer potential. The Hedgehog (HH) pathway has shown promising results as a therapeutic target both in vitro and in vivo. This study aimed to investigate the effects of vismodegib and itraconazole on the expression of Hedgehog (HH) genes (PTCH1, SMO, and GLI1), cell cycle and cell death in OSCC cells. Alamar Blue assay was used to assess the cytotoxicity of vismodegib and itraconazole in a panel of oral cancer cell lines, including CAL27. The expression of HH signaling components after treatment with vismodegib and itraconazole, at concentrations of 25 or 50 μg/ml was evaluated by qPCR. Cell cycle and apoptosis were evaluated by flow cytometry after 72 h treatment with 50 μg/ml of vismodegib or itraconazole. HH signaling was activated in OSCC cell lines CAL27, SCC4, SCC9, and HSC3. Vismodegib and itraconazole significantly reduced CAL27 cell viability after 48 h of treatment. Gene expression of PTCH1, SMO, and GLI1 decreased in response to 24 h of treatment with vismodegib or itraconazole. Furthermore, CAL27 cells exhibited alterations in morphology, cell size, and cellular granularity. An increase in the DNA fragmentation was observed after treatment and both inhibitors induced apoptosis after 72 h. In conclusion, SMO inhibitors vismodegib and itraconazole demonstrably reduced the expression of HH genes in CAL27 OSCC cell line. In addition, treatment with vismodegib and itraconazole reduced cellular viability and altered the morphology of CAL27 cells, and also induced apoptosis.
Highlights
Head and neck cancers pose a serious public health problem due to its high incidence, prevalence, and mortality [1,2,3]
HH pathway activity was confirmed via the constitutive expression of GLI-1 gene, the gold standard for determining HH pathway activation [58,59,60], in all Oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) cell lines tested
HH pathway activity has been shown to lead to the development of several human tumors [16,17,18,19,20,21,22,23,24, 27, 61], including OSCC [15, 62,63,64,65] and other cell lineages of this type of tumor [66]
Summary
Head and neck cancers pose a serious public health problem due to its high incidence, prevalence, and mortality [1,2,3]. According to the classification criteria for oral cavity and oropharynx tumors established by the World Health Organization [8], OSCC is considered an invasive and aggressive epithelial neoplasia with the potential to promote early metastasis and extensive lymph node involvement. This disease mainly affects adult population aged 50 to 60 years old and has a multifactorial etiology, with the principal risk factors being tobacco and alcohol use [9,10,11,12]. A 5-year survival rate has been reported in approximately 50% of OSCC cases [3, 13]
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