Mibefradil inhibits the proliferation of triple-negative breast cancer by targeting AURKA to regulate apoptosis signal pathway

Abstract Background: Triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) is a tumor characterized by high recurrence and mortality, but without effective targeted therapy. It is urgent to explore new treatment strategy to improve the efficacy of TNBC therapy. Methods: Transcriptomic profiling datasets of TNBC were used for screening TNBC specific gene sets. Drug prediction was performed in Connectivity map (CMap) database. Molecular docking method was used for analyzing drug targets. In vitro and in vivo models of TNBC were constructed to examine the drug efficacy. Results: We screened out Mibefradil, a T-type Ca2+ channel blocker, might be a potential therapeutic drug for TNBC by transcriptomics and bioinformatics analysis, and verified that Mibefradil could inhibit the proliferation of TNBC cells by inducing apoptosis and cell cycle arrest. Furthermore, by network pharmacology and molecular docking analysis, AURKA was predicted as the most possible drug target of Mibefradil. Finally, it was proved that Mibefradil treatment could induce apoptosis by decreasing protein expression and phosphorylation level of AURKA in vitro and in vivo. Conclusions: Mibefradil played anti-cancer role in TNBC cells by targeting to AURKA to induce cell cycle and apoptosis. Our results repurposed Mibefradil as a potential targeted drug of TNBC and provided a fundamental research for a novel strategy TNBC treatment.