The impact of tumor nitric oxide production on VEGFA expression and tumor growth in a zebrafish rat glioma xenograft model

PLoS One. 2015 Mar 13;10(3):e0120435. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0120435. eCollection 2015.

Abstract

To investigate the effect of nitric oxide on tumor development, we established a rat tumor xenograft model in zebrafish embryos. The injected tumor cells formed masses in which nitric oxide production could be detected by the use of the cell-permeant DAF-FM-DA (diaminofluorophore 4-amino-5-methylamino-2'-7'-difluorofluorescein diacetate) and DAR-4M-AM (diaminorhodamine-4M). This method revealed that nitric oxide production could be co-localized with the tumor xenograft in 46% of the embryos. In 85% of these embryos, tumors were vascularized and blood vessels were observed on day 4 post injection. Furthermore, we demonstrated by qRT-PCR that the transplanted glioma cells highly expressed Nos2, Vegfa and Cyclin D1 mRNA. In the xenografted embryos we also found increased zebrafish vegfa expression. Glioma and zebrafish derived Vegfa and tumor Cyclin D1 expression could be down regulated by the nitric oxide scavenger 2-(4-Carboxyphenyl)-4,4,5,5-tetramethylimidazoline-1-oxyl-3-oxide or CPTIO. We conclude that even if there is a heterogeneous nitric oxide production by the xenografted glioma cells that impacts Vegfa and Cyclin D1 expression levels, our results suggest that reduction of nitric oxide levels by nitric oxide scavenging could be an efficient approach to treat glioma.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Analysis of Variance
  • Animals
  • Benzoates / pharmacology
  • Cyclin D1 / metabolism
  • Flow Cytometry
  • Gene Expression Regulation, Neoplastic / physiology*
  • Glioma / metabolism*
  • Heterografts
  • Histological Techniques
  • Imidazoles / pharmacology
  • Nitric Oxide / metabolism*
  • Rats
  • Real-Time Polymerase Chain Reaction
  • Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction
  • Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor A / metabolism*
  • Zebrafish

Substances

  • Benzoates
  • Imidazoles
  • Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor A
  • vascular endothelial growth factor A, rat
  • Cyclin D1
  • 1,3-dihydroxy-4,4,5,5-tetramethyl-2-(4-carboxyphenyl)tetrahydroimidazole
  • Nitric Oxide

Grants and funding

This work was supported by the INSERM, the Ministère de l’Éducation Nationale et de l’Enseignement Supérieur et de la Recherche, the Ligue Contre le Cancer, the University of Burgundy, and the Conseil Régional de Bourgogne. NY was supported by the Conseil Régional de Bourgogne by a fellowship of the Feder Program Jeunes chercheurs entreprenneurs (ref. no. 34324) and a fellowship of the Ligue Nationale Contre le Cancer. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.