DNA damage-induced apoptosis suppressor (DDIAS), a novel target of NFATc1, is associated with cisplatin resistance in lung cancer.

In a previous study, we reported that DNA damage induced apoptosis suppressor (DDIAS; hNoxin), a human homolog of mouse Noxin, functions as an anti-apoptotic protein in response to DNA repair. Here we reveal that DDIAS is a target gene of nuclear factor of activated T cells 2 (NFATc1) and is associated with cisplatin resistance in lung cancer cells. In the DDIAS promoter analysis, we found that NFATc1 activated the transcription of DDIAS through binding to NFAT consensus sequences in the DDIAS promoter. In addition, tissue array immunostaining revealed a correlation between DDIAS and NFATc1 expression in human lung tumors. NFATc1 knockdown or treatment with the NFAT inhibitor cyclosporine A induced apoptosis and led to growth inhibition of lung cancer cells, indicating the functional relevance of both the proteins. In contrast, DDIAS overexpression overcame this NFATc1 knockdown-induced growth inhibition, supporting the cancer-specific role of DDIAS as a target gene of NFATc1. NFATc1 or DDIAS inhibition clearly enhanced apoptosis induced by cisplatin in NCI-H1703 and A549 cells. Conversely, DDIAS overexpression rescued NCI-H1703 cells from cisplatin-mediated cell death and caspase-3/7 activation. These results suggest that NFATc1-induced DDIAS expression contributes to cisplatin resistance, and targeting DDIAS or NFATc1 impairs the mechanism regulating cisplatin resistance in lung cancer cells. Taken together, DDIAS is a target of NFATc1 and is associated with cisplatin resistance in lung cancer cells.