Comprehensive omics analysis of a novel small-molecule inhibitor of chemoresistant oncogenic signatures in colorectal cancer cell with antitumor effects

Tumor recurrence from cancer stem cells (CSCs) and metastasis often occur post-treatment in colorectal cancer (CRC), leading to chemoresistance and resistance to targeted therapy. MYC is a transcription factor in the nuclei that modulates cell growth and development, and regulates immune response in an antitumor direction by mediating programmed death ligand 1 (PD-L1) and promoting CRC tumor recurrence after adjuvant chemotherapy. However, the molecular mechanism through which c-MYC maintains stemness and confers treatment resistance still remains elusive in CRC. In addition, recent reports demonstrated that CRC solid colon tumors expresses C-X-C motif chemokine ligand 8 (CXCL8). Expression of CXCL8 in CRC was reported to activate the expression of PD-L1 immune checkpoint through c-MYC, this ultimately induces chemoresistance in CRC. Accumulating studies have also demonstrated increased expression of CXCL8, matrix metalloproteinase 7 (MMP7), tissue inhibitor of metalloproteinase 1 (TIMP1), and epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT) components, in CRC tumors suggesting their potential collaboration to promote EMT and CSCs. TIMP1 is MMP-independent and regulates cell development and apoptosis in various cancer cell types, including CRC. Recent studies showed that TIMP1 cleaves CXCL8 on its chemoattractant, thereby influencing its mechanistic response to therapy. This therefore suggests crosstalk among the c-MYC/CXCL8/TIMP1 oncogenic signatures. In this study, we explored computer simulations through bioinformatics to identify and validate that the MYC/CXCL8/TIMP1 oncogenic signatures are overexpressed in CRC, Moreover, our docking results exhibited putative binding affinities of the above-mentioned oncogenes, with our novel small molecule, RV59, Finally, we demonstrated the anticancer activities of RV59 against NCI human CRC cancer cell lines both as single-dose and dose-dependent treatments, and also demonstrated the MYC/CXCL8/TIMP1 signaling pathway as a potential RV59 drug target.