Abstract B089: Kaiso as a novel therapeutic target in castration-resistant prostate cancer
Authors: Lin Huixian , Wang Honghe , White Jason , Karanam Balasubramanyam , Ghebremedhin Anghesom , Adu-Addai Benjaminal , Grizzle William , Yates Clayton 
Published: September 2020

Androgen receptor (AR) is a critical driver in the progression of prostate cancer (PCa). However, the PCa develops to castration resistant prostate cancer (CRPC) in almost 53% of patients after 18-32 month’s therapy. Metastatic CRPC has poor prognosis and mean survival time is fewer than 2 years. Kaiso belongs to a BTB/POZ zinc finger protein family and is known as a transcriptional repressor. Kaiso expression and localization have been reported to correlate with the prognosis and metastatic potential in several human malignancies. Previous works from our lab have demonstrated that transcription factor Kaiso was upregulated in the progression of PCa. Therefore, our objective is to explore the interrelationship between Kaiso and AR, further to clarify Kaiso as a potential therapeutic target in PCa progression and CRPC. To investigate molecular mechanisms underlying how aberrant expression of Kaiso contributes to CRPC, the androgen sensitive human prostate cancer LNCaP cells were treated with 10μM anti-androgen Enzalutamide (MDV3100). Kaiso expression levels were increased as detected by RT-PCR and immunofluorescence. To systematically investigate Kaiso targets in PCa, we performed Kaiso ChIP-Seq assay using prostate cancer cell lines LNCaP, C4-2B and PC3. The Kaiso ChIP-Seq peaks indicate androgen receptor motif enrichment in AR expressing LNCaP and C4-2B cells but not in AR-negative PC3 cells, indicating Kaiso could cooperate with AR as co-regulator and potentially control transcription of a subset of its target genes. The interaction of them was confirmed by co-immunoprecipitation of AR using Kaiso antibody in LNCaP cells. To identify Kaiso target genes that interacted with AR pathway, Kaiso knockdown and overexpression stable cell lines were established in LNCaP cells and C42B cells. RT2 Profiler PCR array of AR pathway were performed using LNCaP scramble (LNCaP-Scr) cells and shKaiso cells. The results showed multiple genes were upregulated and downregulated, such as FOLH1, PTEN, RAC3 and IGF1. More importantly, LNCaP Kaiso overexpression cells were more resistant to MDV3100 treatment compared to resistance observed in LNCaP-Scr cells. There were significant negative correlations between Kaiso expression levels and castration-sensitivity. Our results suggest that Kaiso is a novel AR-interacting protein. Kaiso regulates the genes in AR pathway. Targeting Kaiso presents a potential therapeutic strategy for disrupting AR signaling in CRPC and may prevent CRPC development.

Citation Format: Huixian Lin, Honghe Wang, Jason White, Balasubramanyam Karanam, Anghesom Ghebremedhin, Benjaminal Adu-Addai, William Grizzle, Clayton Yates. Kaiso as a novel therapeutic target in castration-resistant prostate cancer [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the Twelfth AACR Conference on the Science of Cancer Health Disparities in Racial/Ethnic Minorities and the Medically Underserved; 2019 Sep 20-23; San Francisco, CA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 2020;29(6 Suppl_2):Abstract nr B089.