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Blood, 1 March 2008, Vol. 111, No. 5, pp. 2854-2865.
Prepublished online as a Blood First Edition Paper on December 26, 2007; DOI 10.1182/blood-2007-07-099325.
Previous Article
Submitted July 6, 2007
Accepted December 16, 2007
Aurora kinase inhibitory VX-680 increases Bax/Bcl-2 ratio and induces apoptosis in Aurora-A-high acute myeloid leukemia
Xue-Fei Huang, Shao-Kai Luo, Jie Xu, Juan Li, Duo-Rong Xu, Li-Hui Wang, Min Yan, Xian-Ren Wang, Xiang-Bo Wan, Fei-Meng Zheng, Yi-Xin Zeng, and Quentin Liu*
State Key Laboratory of Oncology in South China, Cancer Center, Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou, China
Department of Hematology, the First Affiliated Hospital, Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou, China
* Corresponding author; email: liuq9{at}mail.sysu.edu.cn.
Previously we and others showed that mitotic Aurora-A kinase (Aur-A) was required for accurate mitotic entry and proper spindle assembly. In this study, we found that expression of Aur-A was markedly elevated in bone marrow mononuclear cells (BMMCs) obtained from a significant portion of de novo acute myeloid leukemia (AML) patients. Targeting human primary AML cells with Aur-A kinase inhibitory VX-680 led to apoptotic cell death in a dose-dependent manner. Importantly, VX-680-induced cell death was preferentially higher in Aur-A-high primary leukemic blasts compared with Aur-A-low AML (P<.0001) or normal BMMCs (P<.0001), suggesting the possible pharmacologic window in targeting Aurora kinase among Aur-A-high VX-680-sensitive leukemia patients. VX-680-induced cell death in AML cell lines was accompanied by formation of monopolar mitotic spindles, G2/M phase arrest, decreased phosphorylated(p)-AKT-1 and increased proteolytic cleavage of procaspase-3 and poly(ADP)ribose polymerase (PARP). Notably, VX-680 increased Bax/Bcl-2 expression ratio, a favorable pro-apoptotic predictor for drug-response and survival in AML. Lastly, VX-680 enhanced the cytotoxic effect of the chemotherapeutic agent etoposide (VP16) on AML cells. Together, we concluded that Aurora kinases were potentially therapeutic targets for AML and Aur-A-high expression may serve as a differential marker for selective treatment.

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