Targeting germline- and tumor-associated nucleotide excision repair defects in cancer Journal Article


Authors: Topka, S.; Steinsnyder, Z.; Ravichandran, V.; Tkachuk, K.; Kemel, Y.; Bandlamudi, C.; Madsen, M. W.; Furberg, H.; Ouerfelli, O.; Rudin, C. M.; Iyer, G.; Lipkin, S. M.; Mukherjee, S.; Solit, D. B.; Berger, M. F.; Bajorin, D. F.; Rosenberg, J. E.; Taylor, B. S.; de Stanchina, E.; Vijai, J.; Offit, K.
Article Title: Targeting germline- and tumor-associated nucleotide excision repair defects in cancer
Abstract: Purpose: Nucleotide excision repair (NER) gene alterations constitute potential cancer therapeutic targets. We explored the prevalence of NER gene alterations across cancers and putative therapeutic strategies targeting these vulnerabilities. Experimental Design: We interrogated our institutional dataset with mutational data from more than 40,000 patients with cancer to assess the frequency of putative deleterious alterations in four key NER genes. Gene-edited isogenic pairs of wild-type and mutant ERCC2 or ERCC3 cell lines were created and used to assess response to several candidate drugs. Results: We found that putative damaging germline and somatic alterations in NER genes were present with frequencies up to 10% across multiple cancer types. Both in vitro and in vivo studies showed significantly enhanced sensitivity to the sesquiterpene irofulven in cells harboring specific clinically observed heterozygous mutations in ERCC2 or ERCC3. Sensitivity of NER mutants to irofulven was greater than to a current standard-ofcare agent, cisplatin. Hypomorphic ERCC2/3-mutant cells had impaired ability to repair irofulven-induced DNA damage. Transcriptomic profiling of tumor tissues suggested codependencies between DNA repair pathways, indicating a potential benefit of combination therapies, which were confirmed by in vitro studies. Conclusions: These findings provide novel insights into a synthetic lethal relationship between clinically observed NER gene deficiencies and sensitivity to irofulven and its potential synergistic combination with other drugs. © 2020 American Association for Cancer Research.
Journal Title: Clinical Cancer Research
Volume: 27
Issue: 7
ISSN: 1078-0432
Publisher: American Association for Cancer Research  
Date Published: 2021-04-01
Start Page: 1997
End Page: 2010
Language: English
DOI: 10.1158/1078-0432.Ccr-20-3322
PROVIDER: scopus
PMCID: PMC8191507
PUBMED: 33199492
DOI/URL:
Notes: Article -- Export Date: 1 June 2021 -- Source: Scopus
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MSK Authors
  1. Dean Bajorin
    658 Bajorin
  2. Kenneth Offit
    788 Offit
  3. David Solit
    779 Solit
  4. Gopakumar Vasudeva Iyer
    344 Iyer
  5. Ouathek Ouerfelli
    102 Ouerfelli
  6. Vijai Joseph
    211 Joseph
  7. Michael Forman Berger
    765 Berger
  8. Barry Stephen Taylor
    238 Taylor
  9. Yelena Kemel
    103 Kemel
  10. Jonathan Eric Rosenberg
    511 Rosenberg
  11. Charles Rudin
    489 Rudin
  12. Sabine   Topka
    13 Topka
  13. Kaitlyn Ann Tkachuk
    22 Tkachuk