BEZ235 Prolongs Murine Cardiac Allograft Survival Through the Autophagy Pathway

Background: BEZ235, a dual PI3K/mTOR inhibitor, has shown a critical impact in the treatment of cancers, with the ability to induce autophagy. However, the effects of BEZ235 in heart transplant have been rarely investigated. The aim of this study was to evaluate the potency of BEZ235 in cardiac allograft survival.

Methods: BEZ235 was administered during the perioperative period of syngeneic or allogeneic heart transplant to assess survival time. Next, the autophagy signaling pathway and the proinflammatory cytokines were analyzed. Furthermore, a cardiomyocytes-specific ATG5 gene-ablated mouse was used to confirm the results.

Results: BEZ235 treatment significantly prolonged the survival of the cardiac graft and reduced the infiltration of inflammatory cells. The expression levels of autophagy proteins were increased in the BEZ235 treatment group compared to the control group, but the therapeutic effect of BEZ235 was weakened in the cardiomyocytes-specific ATG5 gene-ablated mice. Moreover, BEZ235 significantly downregulated the expression of IL-1β, IL-2, and TNF-α.

Conclusions: It seems BEZ235 could induce autophagy and prolonged murine cardiac allograft survival in a mechanism that involved the autophagy pathway and changed multiple inflammatory factors. This study has proposed a theoretical foundation for the strong connection between mTOR-induced autophagy and heart transplant.

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S1009	Dactolisib (BEZ235)	Dactolisib (BEZ235, NVP-BEZ235) is a dual ATP-competitive PI3K and mTOR inhibitor for p110α/γ/δ/β and mTOR(p70S6K) with IC50 of 4 nM /5 nM /7 nM /75 nM /6 nM in cell-free assays, respectively. Inhibits ATR with IC50 of 21 nM in 3T3TopBP1-ER cell. Dactolisib induces autophagy and suppresses HIV-1 replication. Phase 2.

Related Targets

mTOR PI3K ATM/ATR HIV Autophagy