Targeting LMW-PTP to sensitize melanoma cancer cells toward chemo- and radiotherapy.

Tumor resistance to apoptosis is one the main causes of anticancer treatment failure. Previous studies showed that LMW-PTP overexpression enhances resistance of cancer cells to traditional anticancer drugs. Today, the role of LMW-PTP in inducing resistance to apoptosis in melanoma cells remains to be elucidated. Experimental setting include MTT assay, Annexin V/Pi method, and colony assay to assess whether silencing of LMW-PTP improves the sensitivity of A375 to dacarbazine, 5-FU, and radiotherapy. Pharmacological targeting of LMW-PTP was obtained using Morin, a LMW-PTP inhibitor. The ability of Morin to improve the effectiveness of anticancer drugs and radiotherapy was also studied. Moreover, PC3 cells were used as an alternative cellular model to confirm the data obtained with melanoma cells. We found that LMW-PTP silencing improves the effectiveness of dacarbazine, 5-FU, and radiotherapy. Identical results were obtained in vivo when Morin was used to target LMW-PTP. We demonstrated that Morin synergizes with dacarbazine, improving its cytotoxic activity. However, we showed that the combined treatment, Morin-anticancer drug, does not affect the viability of noncancerous cells. Knockdown of LMW-PTP sensitizes also PC3 cells to docetaxel and radiotherapy. In conclusion, we showed that LMW-PTP targeting improves effectiveness of anticancer drugs used for treatment of melanoma. Moreover, our results suggest that Morin could be used as adjuvant to improve the outcome of patients affected by metastatic melanoma.