Estudio de un proceso de muerte celular inducido por una activación no canónica de las caspasas caracterizado por la presencia de morfologías necróticas
- Autores: María Mercè García Belinchón
- Directores de la Tesis: Víctor J. Yuste Mateos (dir. tes.)
- Lectura: En la Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona ( España ) en 2013
- Idioma: español
- Tribunal Calificador de la Tesis: Jacint Boix Torras (presid.), Néstor Gómez Trias (secret.), Carme Solé Serra (voc.)
- Materias:
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- Resumen
The classic definition of apoptotic cell death ascertains the presence of type II apoptotic nuclear morphology (chromatin condensation and fragmentation of the nucleus) and oligonucleosomal DNA degradation or LMW (low molecular weight). Cells derived from human neuroblastoma SH-SY5Y have this cell death phenotype upon a cytotoxic stimulus as for example estaurosporine. In the present study, we demonstrate that the SH-SY5Y cells undergo a process of cell death in a homogeneous way with a nuclear non-apoptotic phenotype after the challenge with a benzophenanthridine alkaloid, chelerythrine. This nuclear non-apoptotic phenotype is also shown in other cell lines derived from human neuroblastoma upon the chelerythrine treatment. In addition, we establish that this alkaloid is not able to induce the oligonucleosomal DNA degradation, even when the cell death percentages reached are higher than the values obtained with treatment of estaurosporine. On the other hand, we show that the non-apoptotic nuclear phenotype appears early. It depends on anticipatory activation of caspases in a cell death process which triggers quickly. In this context, the increase of CAD levels expression, the main endonuclease responsible for DNA apoptotic degradation and nuclear morphology of type II, does not restore the apoptotic phenotype after the treatment with chelerythrine. Moreover, we demonstrate that the SH-SY5Y cells show the non-apoptotic cell death phenotype induced by the alkaloid although CAD is located in the chromatin-enriched fraction. Besides this, we ascertain that the cell death induced by chelerythrine is concomitant with the presence of DNA intercalating properties from this alkaloid. In this sense, we show that other DNA binding agents, just like chelerythrine, avoid the apoptotic phenotype induced by estaurosporine. Furthermore, we find that the DNA binding agents belonging to the same family that chelerithrine (benzophenanthridine), such as sanguinarine, also induce a premature activation of caspases. On the other hand, the presence of different thiolic antioxidants in the culture media prevents the cell death process triggered by chelerythrine. Moreover, this fact coincides with a high percentage of cells undergoes an early oxidative stress through detection of reactive oxygen species (ROS). Finally, the addition to the culture media of certain DTT (dithiothreitol) concentrations, a thiolic antioxidant, delays the caspases activation and restores the apoptotic morphology of type II, after the treatment with chelerythrine.
Altogether, the results obtained from this work ascertain that the oxidative stress processes and DNA binding properties are crucial to the induction of different cell death phenotypes. Thus, an early ROS production relates to a premature activation of caspases, which would be counter-productive to achieve a canonical apoptotic phenotype in cells destined to die. Furthermore, the DNA intercalating properties from one particular compound, such as chemotherapeutic agent, would disadvantage the CAD enzymatic action of double-strand DNA fragments on chromatin degradation to generate the oligonucleosomals fragments. However, the DNA intercalating properties would not be able to avoid the compaction and fragmentation of the nucleus during cytotoxic stimulus.
In conclusion, the cell death process induced by chelerythrine becomes an important tool that allows us to explore new processes of cell death and, therefore, to study the molecular pathways involved in evasion to the canonical apoptotic death.
