Radioactive-
iodine (RAI)
therapy is typically unprevailing as
anaplastic thyroid cancer (ATC) management, owing to the decrease in the endogenous
sodium iodide symporter (NIS) expression. Therefore, new strategies for NIS re-induction are required to improve the efficacy of RAI
therapy in ATC. In this study, we developed a novel high-throughput NIS enhancer screening platform using a dual reporter gene system to identify a potent
tyrosine kinase inhibitor (TKI) and selected a new hit compound,
K905-0266 TKI. The effects of
K905-0266 TKI treatment was validated as RAI accumulation, changes in signalling pathway related to thyroid pathogenesis, and cytotoxicity of RAI depending on re-induction of endogenous NIS expression in ATC. Furthermore, we evaluated enhancement of NIS promoter and therapeutic efficacy of RAI in ATC tumour xenograft mice. After
K905-0266 TKI treatment, the expression of endogenous NIS was significantly increased, while phosphorylated-ERK was decreased. In addition, the thyroid-metabolising
protein expressions were upregulated and increased of RAI accumulation and its
therapeutic effects in ATC. Moreover,
K905-0266 TKI increased therapeutic efficacy of RAI in ATC tumour in vivo. In conclusion, we successfully established a novel high-throughput NIS enhancer screening platform to excavate a NIS enhancer and identified
K905-0266 TKI among TKI candidates and it's proven to increase the endogenous NIS expression and therapeutic efficacy of RAI in ATC. These findings suggest that a novel high-throughput NIS enhancer screening platform is useful for selecting of NIS promoter enhancers. In addition,
K905-0266 TKI can be used to re-induce endogenous NIS expression and recover RAI
therapy in ATC.