A critical role for Choline Kinase alpha in the aggressiveness of bladder carcinomas

Bladder cancer is one of the most common causes of death in industrialized countries. New tumor markers and therapeutic approaches are still needed to improve management of bladder cancer patients. Choline Kinase alpha (ChoKα) is a metabolic enzyme that has a role in cell proliferation and transformation. Inhibitors of ChoKα display antitumoral activity and are expected to be soon in clinical trials. This study is aimed to asses whether ChoKα plays a role in the aggressiveness of bladder tumors and constitute a new approach for bladder cancer treatment. We demonstrate here that ChoKα is constitutively altered in human bladder tumor cells. Furthermore, in vivo murine models including an orthotopic model to mimic as much as possible the physiological conditions, revealed that increased levels of ChoKα potentiates both tumor formation (p≤0.0001) and aggressiveness of the disease over different endpoints (p=0.011). Accordingly, increased levels of ChoKα significantly reduces survival of mice with bladder cancer (p=0.05). Finally, treatment with ChoKα specific inhibitor resulted in a significant inhibition of tumor growth (p=0.02) and in a relevant increase in survival (p=0.03).