Determination of the molecular players of adaptation to anti-angiogenic therapy in breast cancer by quantitative proteomic and high molecular MALDI Imaging.

Breast carcinoma is the most common and second leading cause of cancer mortality in women. The recognition of the “angiogenic switch” as a rate-limiting secondary step in tumorigenesis led to extensive pre-clinical researches on angiogenesis and finally the approval of VEGF-neutralizing antibodies (bevacizumab) and VEGF receptor tyrosine kinase inhibitors (RTKs:Sunitinib). The Sunitinib has been used clinically in patients with breast cancer refractory to other therapeutic agents. Unfortunately, like the cytotoxic therapies, these drugs do not produce lasting effects and resistance to treatment appeared clinically. Questions have emerged about the failure of anti-angiogenic therapy in clinic and the limitations of predictive preclinical models, and also about the molecular assessment of all stages of tumor adaptation and me<x>tastatic disease. To this end, we applied quantitative proteomics and imaging mass spectrometry tools to visualize and study the profiles of proteins and small molecules associated with tumor treated or not with Sunitinib using a novel preclinical model of breast carcinoma cells.
In this project, we first developed a reproducible model of resistance to Sunitinib of human triple negative breast cancer MDA-MB-231 cells expressing luciferase gene. Cells were subcutaneously injected into mice RAG1-/- and divided into four experimental groups including, control mice treated with vehicle or Sunitinib for 30 days and sacrificed 1 days after treatment withdrawal or when tumor reached a volume of 300 mm3. In the second step. Tumors were analyzed using a nanoAcquity UPLC Synapt TM HDMS TM G1 (Waters, Manchester,UK) and Mass Spectrometry Imaging. For quantitative proteomic analyses of tumors, a bioinformatics analysis was used with the Protein lynx global server 2.2.5 software. Imaging mass spectrometry was performed on tissue sections of tumors and organs subsequently colonized by me<x>tastases. Matrix sublimation was used to coat tumor sections (14 µm-tick) with 1.5 Diaminonaphthalene for lipids analysis and Sinapinic acid for entire proteins analysis. Ion cartographies were recorded with a Solarix 9.4T FTMS instrument for lipids and with an Ultraflex II TOF-TOF instrument for entire proteins (Bruker Daltonics, Germany) with a spatial resolution of 100 µm.
Global protemic revealed different protein profiles between tumor treated or not with Sunitinib. The Mass Spectrometry Imaging detected differences in intensity and location of some proteins and lipids are also associated with some histological features including inflammatory, necrotic and angiogenic areas. Bioinformatics analysis will be applied to ensure the integration of all data in order to provide the basis for identifying molecular pathways activated during the acquisition of refractoriness to drug treatments.