Project name: Biological response of adrenal carcinoma and melanoma cells to mitotane treatment

Description: A previous case study described an adrenal incidentaloma initially misdiagnosed as adrenocortical carcinoma (ACC) and treated with mitotane. The final diagnosis was metastatic melanoma of unknown primary origin. However, the patient developed rapid disease progression after mitotane withdrawal, suggesting a protective role for mitotane in a non-adrenal derived tumour. The aim of the present study was to determine the biological response of primary melanoma cells obtained from that patient and in two other established melanoma and ACC cell lines treated with mitotane. Although mitotane inhibited proliferation of both ACC and melanoma cells, its role in melanoma treatment appears to be limited. Flow cytometry analysis and transcriptomic studies indicated that the ACC cell line was highly responsive to mitotane treatment, although the primary melanoma cell line showed a moderate response in vitro. Mitotane modified activity in several key biological processes, including “mitotic nuclear division”, “DNA repair”, “angiogenesis”, and “negative regulation of ERK1 and ERK2 cascade”.Overall design: The isolated RNA was pooled into two samples per group, consisting of the following: 1) untreated primary melanoma cell culture; 2) mitotane-treated primary melanoma cell culture; 3) untreated WM266-4 cell line; 4) mitotane-treated WM266-4 cell line; 5) untreated HAC15 cell line; 6) mitotane-treated HAC15 cell line. The cells were treated with mitotane (final concentration 50 μM) within 24 hours.

Data type: Transcriptome or Gene expression

Sample scope: Multiisolate

Relevance: Medical

Last updated: 2021-10-31