RESUMO
Some mutations in cancer cells can be exploited for therapeutic intervention. However, for many cancer subtypes, including triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC), no frequently recurring aberrations could be identified to make such an approach clinically feasible. Characterized by a highly heterogeneous mutational landscape with few common features, many TNBCs cluster together based on their 'basal-like' transcriptional profiles. We therefore hypothesized that targeting TNBC cells on a systems level by exploiting the transcriptional cell state might be a viable strategy to find novel therapies for this highly aggressive disease. We performed a large-scale chemical genetic screen and identified a group of compounds related to the drug PKC412 (midostaurin). PKC412 induced apoptosis in a subset of TNBC cells enriched for the basal-like subtype and inhibited tumor growth in vivo. We employed a multi-omics approach and computational modeling to address the mechanism of action and identified spleen tyrosine kinase (SYK) as a novel and unexpected target in TNBC. Quantitative phosphoproteomics revealed that SYK inhibition abrogates signaling to STAT3, explaining the selectivity for basal-like breast cancer cells. This non-oncogene addiction suggests that chemical SYK inhibition may be beneficial for a specific subset of TNBC patients and demonstrates that targeting cell states could be a viable strategy to discover novel treatment strategies.
Assuntos
Antineoplásicos/farmacologia , Peptídeos e Proteínas de Sinalização Intracelular/metabolismo , Terapia de Alvo Molecular , Proteínas Tirosina Quinases/metabolismo , Fator de Transcrição STAT3/metabolismo , Estaurosporina/análogos & derivados , Neoplasias de Mama Triplo Negativas/metabolismo , Animais , Apoptose/efeitos dos fármacos , Diferenciação Celular/efeitos dos fármacos , Linhagem Celular Tumoral , Proliferação de Células/efeitos dos fármacos , Sobrevivência Celular/efeitos dos fármacos , Sistemas de Liberação de Medicamentos , Feminino , Perfilação da Expressão Gênica , Humanos , Camundongos , Simulação de Acoplamento Molecular , Domínios e Motivos de Interação entre Proteínas , Proteômica/métodos , Análise de Sequência de RNA , Transdução de Sinais , Estaurosporina/farmacologia , Quinase Syk , Fator de Crescimento Transformador beta/genética , Fator de Crescimento Transformador beta/metabolismo , Ensaios Antitumorais Modelo de XenoenxertoRESUMO
Linking the molecular aberrations of cancer to drug responses could guide treatment choice and identify new therapeutic applications. However, there has been no systematic approach for analyzing gene-drug interactions in human cells. Here we establish a multiplexed assay to study the cellular fitness of a panel of engineered isogenic cancer cells in response to a collection of drugs, enabling the systematic analysis of thousands of gene-drug interactions. Applying this approach to breast cancer revealed various synthetic-lethal interactions and drug-resistance mechanisms, some of which were known, thereby validating the method. NOTCH pathway activation, which occurs frequently in breast cancer, unexpectedly conferred resistance to phosphoinositide 3-kinase (PI3K) inhibitors, which are currently undergoing clinical trials in breast cancer patients. NOTCH1 and downstream induction of c-MYC over-rode the dependency of cells on the PI3K-mTOR pathway for proliferation. These data reveal a new mechanism of resistance to PI3K inhibitors with direct clinical implications.