Despite advances in the development of molecularly targeted therapies, metastatic renal cell carcinoma (RCC) is still incurable. Artesunate (ART), a well-known anti-malarial drug with low toxicity, exhibits highly selective anti-tumor actions against various tumors through generation of cytotoxic carbon-centered free radical in the presence of free iron. However, the therapeutic efficacy of ART against metastatic RCC has not yet been fully elucidated. In the analysis on a dataset from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) (n = 469) and a tissue microarray set from Samsung Medical Center (n = 119) from a cohort of patients with clear cell RCC (ccRCC), up-regulation of transferrin receptor 1 (TfR1), which is a well-known predictive marker for ART, was correlated with the presence of distant metastasis and an unfavorable prognosis. Moreover, ART exerted potent selective cytotoxicity against human RCC cell lines (Caki-1, 786-O, and SN12C-GFP-SRLu2) and sensitized these cells to sorafenib in vitro, and the extent of ART cytotoxicity correlated with TfR1 expression. ART-mediated growth inhibition of human RCC cell lines was shown to result from the induction of cell cycle arrest at the G2/M phase and oncosis-like cell death. Furthermore, ART inhibited cell clonogenicity and invasion of human RCC cells and anti-angiogenic effects in vitro in a dose-dependent manner. Consistent with these in vitro data, anti-tumor, anti-metastatic and anti-angiogenic effects of ART were also validated in human 786-O xenografts. Taken together, ART is a promising novel candidate for treating human RCC, either alone or in combination with other therapies.
Keywords: artesunate; drug repurposing; metastasis; oncosis; renal cell carcinoma.