First-in-class small molecule potentiators of cancer virotherapy.

The use of engineered viral strains such as gene therapy vectors and oncolytic viruses (OV) to selectively destroy cancer cells is poised to make a major impact in the clinic and revolutionize cancer therapy. In particular, several studies have shown that OV therapy is safe and well tolerated in humans and can infect a broad range of cancers. Yet in clinical studies OV therapy has highly variable response rates. The heterogeneous nature of tumors is widely accepted to be a major obstacle for OV therapeutics and highlights a need for strategies to improve viral replication efficacy. Here, we describe the development of a new class of small molecules for selectively enhancing OV replication in cancer tissue. Medicinal chemistry studies led to the identification of compounds that enhance multiple OVs and gene therapy vectors. Lead compounds increase OV growth up to 2000-fold in vitro and demonstrate remarkable selectivity for cancer cells over normal tissue ex vivo and in vivo. These small molecules also demonstrate enhanced stability with reduced electrophilicity and are highly tolerated in animals. This pharmacoviral approach expands the scope of OVs to include resistant tumors, further potentiating this transformative therapy. It is easily foreseeable that this approach can be applied to therapeutically enhance other attenuated viral vectors.

Regulation of vascular endothelial growth factor receptor 2-mediated phosphorylation of focal adhesion kinase by heat shock protein 90 and Src kinase activities.

Exposure of endothelial cells to vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) induced tyrosine phosphorylation of focal adhesion kinase (FAK) on site Tyr(407), an effect that required the association of VEGF receptor 2 (VEGFR2) with HSP90. The association of VEGFR2 with HSP90 involved the last 130 amino acids of VEGFR2 and was blocked by geldanamycin, a specific inhibitor of HSP90. Moreover, geldanamycin inhibited the VEGF-induced activation of the small GTPase RhoA, which resulted in an inhibition of phosphorylation of FAK on site Tyr(407). In this context, the inhibition of RhoA kinase (ROCK) with Y27632 or by expression of dominant negative forms of RhoA or ROCK impaired the VEGF-induced phosphorylation of Tyr(407) within FAK. In contrast to phosphorylation of Tyr(861), the phosphorylation of site Tyr(407) was insensitive to Src kinase inhibition by 4-amino-5-(4-chlorophenyl)-7-(t-butyl) pyrazolo[3,4-d] pyrimidine (PP2). We also found that the recruitment of paxillin to FAK was inhibited by geldanamycin but not by PP2, whereas both geldanamycin and PP2 inhibited the recruitment of vinculin to FAK. In accordance, the recruitment of paxillin and vinculin to FAK was inhibited in cells that express the mutant FAK-Y407F, whereas the expression of the mutant Y861F inhibited the recruitment of paxillin but not of vinculin. Importantly, cell migration was abolished in cells in which the signal from the VEGFR2-HSP90 pathway was blocked by the expression of Delta130VEGFR2, a deletant of VEGFR2 that does not associate with HSP90. Our findings underscore for the first time the key role played by the VEGFR2-HSP90-RhoA-ROCK-FAK/Tyr(407) pathway in transducing the VEGF signal that leads to the assembly of focal adhesions and endothelial cell migration.