Mechanism of heavy ion radiation-induced cancer cell death

We previously reported that the carbon beam triggers apoptosis in radio-resistant cancer cell lines via extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK)- and mitochondrial Bcl-2 family protein-dependant mechanism. Here, we further examined the further apoptosis-inducing mechanism of carbon beam in two glioma cell lines (T98G, U251). ERK1/2 knockdown experiments revealed that ERK regulates this apoptosis-inducing machinery upstream of mitochondria. Furthermore, we also found that both T98G cell and U251 cell stably expressing dominant-negative ERK2 suppress cell death induced by carbon beam irradiation. We also found proapoptotic PUMA and antiapoptotic Bcl-2 dynamically chang their expression levels corresponding to ERK activation after CB irradiation in U251 cell, and knockdown of PUMA decreased CB-induced U251 cell death. These data suggest that kinase action of ERK is essential for CB-induced glioma cell death, and proapoptotic PUMA and antiapoptotic Bcl-2 might be downstream targets of ERK in CB-induced glioma cell death mechanism. (author)