Antitumor activity of a novel and orally available inhibitor of serine palmitoyltransferase

Abstract

Metabolic reprogramming is an essential hallmark of neoplasia. Therefore, targeting cancer metabolism, including lipid synthesis, has attracted much interest in recent years. Serine palmitoyltransferase (SPT) plays a key role in the initial and rate-limiting step of de novo sphingolipid biosynthesis, and inhibiting SPT activity prevents the proliferation of certain cancer cells. Here, we identified a novel and orally available SPT inhibitor, compound-2. Compound-2 showed an anti-proliferative effect in several cancer cell models, reducing the levels of the sphingolipids ceramide and sphingomyelin. In the presence of compound-2, exogenously added S1P partially compensated the intracellular sphingolipid levels through the salvage pathway by partially rescuing compound-2-induced cytotoxicity. This suggested that the mechanism underlying the anti-proliferative effect of compound-2 involved the reduction of sphingolipid levels. Indeed, compound-2 promoted multinuclear formation with reduced endogenous sphingomyelin levels specifically in a compound-2-sensitive cell line, indicating that the effect was induced by sphingolipid reduction. Furthermore, compound-2 showed potent antitumor activity without causing significant body weight loss in the PL-21 acute myeloid leukemia mouse xenograft model. Therefore, SPT may be an attractive therapeutic anti-cancer drug target for which compound-2 may be a promising new drug.

Keywords: Serine palmitoyltransferase; Sphingolipids; Sphingomyelin; Sphingomyelinase.