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Simple Summary During the past decades the achievements made in treating cancers have significantly improved the survival of patients. However, cancer is still one of the leading causes of mortality. It is suggested that treatment failure is mediated by a subpopulation of tumor cells named cancer stem cells that can survive after treatment and promote cancer relapse. Targeting these cells is important to improve cancer therapy. The aim of our study is to determine the effect of a human ribonuclease variant on breast cancer cells grown in 3D and on cancer stem cells. Moreover, we study its effect on the ability of breast cancer cells to migrate and produce metastasis, responsible for about 90% of cancer deaths. We show that this ribonuclease arrests tumor cells grown in 3D without affecting normal breast cells, and this significantly inhibits cancer stem cell development. Additionally, it reduces the migratory and invasive capacities of tumor cells. Abstract Despite the significant advances in cancer research made in recent years, this disease remains one of the leading causes of death worldwide. In part, this is due to the fact that after therapy, a subpopulation of self-renewing tumor cells can survive and promote cancer relapse, resistance to therapies and metastasis. Targeting these cancer stem cells (CSCs) is therefore essential to improve the clinical outcome of cancer patients. In this sense, multi-targeted drugs may be promising agents targeting CSC-associated multifocal effects. We have previously constructed different human pancreatic ribonuclease (RNase) variants that are cytotoxic for tumor cells due to a non-classical nuclear localization signal introduced in their sequence. These cytotoxic RNases affect the expression of multiple genes involved in deregulated metabolic and signaling pathways in cancer cells and are highly cytotoxic for multidrug-resistant tumor cell lines. Here, we show that these cytotoxic nuclear-directed RNases are highly selective for tumor cell lines grown in 3D, inhibit CSCs’ development and diminish the self-renewal capacity of the CSCs population. Moreover, these human RNase variants reduce the migration and invasiveness of highly invasive breast cancer cells and downregulate N-cadherin expression.

Ribonucleases are proteins whose use is promising in anticancer therapy. We have previously constructed different human pancreatic ribonuclease variants that are selectively cytotoxic for tumor cells by introducing a nuclear localization signal into their sequence. However, these modifications produced an important decrease in their stability compromising their behavior in vivo. Here, we show that we can significantly increase the thermal stability of these cytotoxic proteins by introducing additional disulfide bonds by site-directed mutagenesis. One of these variants increases its thermal stability by around 17 &deg, C, without affecting its catalytic activity while maintaining the cytotoxic activity against tumor cells. We also show that the most stable variant is significantly more resistant to proteolysis when incubated with proteinase K or with human sera, suggesting that its half-live could be increased in vivo once administered.