Identification of a synthetic lethal relationship between nucleotide excision repair deficiency and irofulven sensitivity in urothelial cancer Journal Article


Authors: Börcsök, J.; Sztupinszki, Z.; Bekele, R.; Gao, S. P.; Diossy, M.; Samant, A. S.; Dillon, K. M.; Tisza, V.; Spisák, S.; Rusz, O.; Csabai, I.; Pappot, H.; Frazier, Z. J.; Konieczkowski, D. J.; Liu, D.; Vasani, N.; Rodrigues, J. A.; Solit, D. B.; Hoffman-Censits, J. H.; Plimack, E. R.; Rosenberg, J. E.; Lazaro, J. B.; Taplin, M. E.; Iyer, G.; Brunak, S.; Lozsa, R.; Van Allen, E. M.; Szüts, D.; Mouw, K. W.; Szallasi, Z.
Article Title: Identification of a synthetic lethal relationship between nucleotide excision repair deficiency and irofulven sensitivity in urothelial cancer
Abstract: Purpose: Cisplatin-based chemotherapy is a first-line treatment for muscle-invasive and metastatic urothelial cancer. Approximately 10% of bladder urothelial tumors have a somatic missense mutation in the nucleotide excision repair (NER) gene, ERCC2, which confers increased sensitivity to cisplatin-based chemotherapy. However, a significant subset of patients is ineligible to receive cisplatin-based therapy due to medical contraindications, and no NER-targeted approaches are available for platinum-ineligible or platinum-refractory ERCC2-mutant cases. Experimental Design: We used a series of NER-proficient and NER-deficient preclinical tumor models to test sensitivity to irofulven, an abandoned anticancer agent. In addition, we used available clinical and sequencing data from multiple urothelial tumor cohorts to develop and validate a composite mutational signature of ERCC2 deficiency and cisplatin sensitivity. Results: Weidentified a novel synthetic lethal relationship between tumor NER deficiency and sensitivity to irofulven. Irofulven specifically targets cells with inactivation of the transcription-coupled NER (TC-NER) pathway and leads to robust responses in vitro and in vivo, including in models with acquired cisplatin resistance, while having minimal effect on cells with intact NER. We also found that a composite mutational signature of ERCC2 deficiency was strongly associated with cisplatin response in patients and was also associated with cisplatin and irofulven sensitivity in preclinical models. Conclusions: Tumor NER deficiency confers sensitivity to irofulven, a previously abandoned anticancer agent, with minimal activity in NER-proficient cells. A composite mutational signature of NER deficiency may be useful in identifying patients likely to respond to NER-targeting agents, including cisplatin and irofulven. © 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: 2011
End Page: 2022
Language: English
DOI: 10.1158/1078-0432.Ccr-20-3316
PROVIDER: scopus
PMCID: PMC8026514
PUBMED: 33208343
DOI/URL:
Notes: Article -- Export Date: 1 June 2021 -- Source: Scopus
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  1. David Solit
    779 Solit
  2. Gopakumar Vasudeva Iyer
    344 Iyer
  3. Sizhi Gao
    47 Gao
  4. Jonathan Eric Rosenberg
    511 Rosenberg
  5. Naresh B Vasani
    4 Vasani