Effect of Trichostatin A on radiation induced epithelial-mesenchymal transition in A549 cells

Radiotherapy is used to treat tumors of different origins and nature, but often lead to development of radioresistance and metastasis of cells. Interestingly, radiation induces epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT), a process by which epithelial cells undergo mesenchymal phenotype and stimulates tumor progression capability. Our study investigated the effect of Trichostatin A (TSA), a natural derivate isolated from Streptomyces, upon radiation-induced lung EMT and we tried to understand the role of signaling molecules in irradiated lung cancer cells (A549). The cells were categorized into four groups: untreated control, radiation alone (R; 8Gy, X-ray), radiation combined with TSA (R + T) and TSA (100nM). Radiation-induced lung EMT were evidenced by decreased expression of epithelial marker like E-cadherin, Zona occluden1 (ZO-1) and increased expression of N-cadherin and Vimentin. The Snail protein, a master regulator of EMT, was observed to be elevated after radiation treatment. In addition, TGF-β1 signaling (smad2, 3, and 4) proteins were activated upon irradiation. Western blot data were supported by the altered m-RNA expression of E-cadherin, TGF-β and Snail genes and this effect were reversed by TSA treatment. In addition to this, as supportive evidence, we performed docking studies between snail protein and TSA using Auto docking software and results suggested that less binding energy was needed for the putative binding of TSA on C-terminal domain of Snail protein. Based on our report, we suggest that TSA can effectively inhibit radiation-induced EMT (i) by altering epithelial and mesenchymal markers (ii) by modulating signaling molecules of TGFβ1 pathway (iii) by inhibiting cancer cell migratory potential in A549 cells (iv)by effectively binding to Snail which is an enhancer of EMT.