Phytohormones have shown great potential as natural anticancer compounds, being interesting in cancer prevention and therapy. Strigolactones are a class of plant hormones involved in the inhibition of root branching and sprouting. The antiproliferative capacity of the synthetic strigolactone analog GR-24 has been described against breast cancer cell lines in vitro. In this study, we show for the first time that GR-24 is a potent antiangiogenic compound in vivo and in vitro. In the in vivo tests, GR-24 shows a great inhibitory effect on vasculature formation in the chicken chorioallantoic membrane and in two different zebrafish models. Our in vitro results show that GR-24 inhibits the growth of endothelial cells and different cancer cell lines with a micromolar range of half inhibitory concentration (IC50) values. In addition, GR-24 inhibits key steps of the angiogenic process in vitro, such as tubulogenesis, invasion, extracellular matrix remodeling capacity, migration and adhesion of endothelial cells at non-cytotoxic concentrations. Our data point to an effect of GR-24 on cytoskeleton organization in endothelial cells, in addition to a decrease in focal adhesion kinase (FAK) presence in these cells. All these data, together with the observed increase in surface expression of vascular endothelial-cadherin (VE-cadherin) and platelet and endothelial cell adhesion molecule 1 (PECAM-1), suggest that GR-24 prevents angiogenesis by maintaining the quiescent phenotype in endothelial cells. The proposed mechanism of action underlying the antiangiogenic activity of GR-24 involves the inhibition of VEGFR2 phosphorylation, and the downstream reduction in activation of FAK, a key regulator protein implicated in angiogenesis. Our results suggest that GR-24 may be a promising new compound for antiangiogenic therapy of cancer and other angiogenesis-dependent diseases.
Keywords: Angiogenesis; Cytoskeleton; FAK; GR-24; VEGFR2.
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