Quisinostat mediated autophagy is associated with differentiation in neuroblastoma SK-N-SH cells

Neuroblastoma (NB) is the most common childhood cancer that arises from the sympathetic nervous system. NB is characterized by poor prognosis. One of the strategies to control NB is activating the differentiation process in undifferentiated NB cells. Many differentiating agents including 13-cis-retinoic acid (RA) led to disappointing results. In the current study, we investigated the effect of Quisinostat/JNJ-26481585(JNJ) on NB SK-N-SH cells differentiation. The SK-N-SH cell differentiation was observed by morphology and neurite length measurement. The cell cycle arrest was determined by FACS analysis. The relative levels of autophagy marker LC3-II, neuronal markers βIII-tubulin and Eno-2, cell cycle related proteins cyclin D1 and CDK 4 were detected by western blotting. JNJ induces differentiation in SK-N-SH cells, as evident by the morphological features and expression of neuronal markers, βIII-tubulin and Eno-2. Cell cycle arrest at G1 phase was confirmed by a decrease in the expression of cyclin D1 and CDK 4. Furthermore, we also observed that autophagy plays an important role in JNJ induced cell differentiation of SK-N-SH cells. We demonstrated that autophagy is induced upon JNJ treatment and is important for the neuronal differentiation of human SK-N-SH cells.