scholarly journals The RXR Agonist MSU42011 Is Effective for the Treatment of Preclinical HER2+ Breast Cancer and Kras-Driven Lung Cancer

Cancers ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (19) ◽  
pp. 5004
Author(s):  
Ana S. Leal ◽  
Jessica A. Moerland ◽  
Di Zhang ◽  
Sarah Carapellucci ◽  
Beth Lockwood ◽  
...  

(1) Background: Notwithstanding numerous therapeutic advances, 176,000 deaths from breast and lung cancers will occur in the United States in 2021 alone. The tumor microenvironment and its modulation by drugs have gained increasing attention and relevance, especially with the introduction of immunotherapy as a standard of care in clinical practice. Retinoid X receptors (RXRs) are members of the nuclear receptor superfamily and upon ligand binding, function as transcription factors to modulate multiple cell functions. Bexarotene, the only FDA-approved RXR agonist, is still used to treat cutaneous T-cell lymphoma. (2) Methods: To test the immunomodulatory and anti-tumor effects of MSU42011, a new RXR agonist, we used two different immunocompetent murine models (MMTV-Neu mice, a HER2 positive model of breast cancer and the A/J mouse model, in which vinyl carbamate is used to initiate lung tumorigenesis) and an immunodeficient xenograft lung cancer model. (3) Results: Treatment of established tumors in immunocompetent models of HER2-positive breast cancer and Kras-driven lung cancer with MSU42011 significantly decreased the tumor burden and increased the ratio of CD8/CD4, CD25 T cells, which correlates with enhanced anti-tumor efficacy. Moreover, the combination of MSU42011 and immunotherapy (anti-PDL1 and anti-PD1 antibodies) significantly (p < 0.05) reduced tumor size vs. individual treatments. However, MSU42011 was ineffective in an athymic human A549 lung cancer xenograft model, supporting an immunomodulatory mechanism of action. (4) Conclusions: Collectively, these data suggest that the RXR agonist MSU42011 can be used to modulate the tumor microenvironment in breast and lung cancer.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
saman farahmand ◽  
Aileen Fernandez ◽  
Fahad Shabbir Ahmed ◽  
David Rimm ◽  
Jeffrey H Chuang ◽  
...  

The current standard of care for many patients with HER2-positive breast cancer is neoadjuvant chemotherapy in combination with anti-HER2 agents, based on HER2 amplification as detected by in situ hybridization (ISH) or protein immunohistochemistry (IHC). However, hematoxylin & eosin (H&E) tumor stains are more commonly available, and accurate prediction of HER2 status and anti-HER2 treatment response from H&E would reduce costs and increase the speed of treatment selection. Computational algorithms for H&E have been effective in predicting a variety of cancer features and clinical outcomes, including moderate success in predicting HER2 status. In this work, we present a novel convolutional neural network (CNN) approach able to predict HER2 status with increased accuracy over prior methods. We trained a CNN classifier on 188 H&E whole slide images (WSIs) manually annotated for tumor regions of interest (ROIs) by our pathology team. Our classifier achieved an area under the curve (AUC) of 0.90 in cross-validation of slide-level HER2 status and 0.81 on an independent TCGA test set. Within slides, we observed strong agreement between pathologist annotated ROIs and blinded computational predictions of tumor regions / HER2 status. Moreover, we trained our classifier on pre-treatment samples from 187 HER2+ patients that subsequently received trastuzumab therapy. Our classifier achieved an AUC of 0.80 in a five-fold cross validation. Our work provides an H&E-based algorithm that can predict HER2 status and trastuzumab response in breast cancer at an accuracy that is better than IHC and may benefit clinical evaluations.


2020 ◽  
Vol 38 (15_suppl) ◽  
pp. e12657-e12657
Author(s):  
Tushar Pandey ◽  
Tyler M Earnest ◽  
John A Cole ◽  
Eduardo Braun

e12657 Background: Over the last decade, there has been incredible progress in HER2-positive breast cancer patients with the adoption of targeted therapies like Trastuzumab and Pertuzumab to complement existing chemotherapies. Increasingly neoadjuvant therapy is the preferred method of therapy as it is better able to predict prognosis via pCR as well as guide adjuvant therapeutic strategy in cases with residual tumor. There are now a variety of combination therapies recommended for HER2-positive patients. As new therapies are developed, the standard-of-care shifts towards the regimen with highest pCR rate. The latest regimen being TCHP which produced pCR rates over 60% in clinical trials. While the improvement in pCR rates at a population level is encouraging, there is a growing sentiment among physicians that we may be over treating patients impacting both costs and resulting toxicity. Methods: We performed an analysis of Breast Cancer trials with pCR as the primary end point and stratification available based on HER2+ status. The cost (median insurance reimbursement) was also referenced from a recent ASCO observational study as a proxy for direct costs of drugs. Toxicities were referenced and each regimen scored (TS) from NCCN Evidence Blocks and adverse events from clinical trials. Potential savings were evaluated if a clinician had the ability to individualize regimen choice by patient. We utilized the SimBioSys TumorScope platform to perform in silico simulations to predict response to alternate therapies as it had previously used to analyze potential deescalate between AC-T vs TC in a HER2- cohort. Results: The following regimens were evaluated HP (pCR:17%,TS:1), TH (pCR: 29%,TS: 2) THP (pCR: 46%, TS: 3), TCH (pCR: 43%, TS: 4), TCHP (pCR: 64%, TS: 5), AC-TH (pCR: 43%, TS: 6), AC-THP(pCR: 55%, TS: 7). Based on an in-silico analysis and selection (where pCR was likely with multiple regimens), the lowest cost & toxicity regimen was selected. The estimated average saving per case of over $100,000 for the overall treatment plan . The calculated toxicity score was also reduced by this method to under 4 from the TCHP(5) standard of care. Conclusions: While the results above are estimates and perfection in such individualization may not be possible, an in-silico approach provides a promising solution.


Cancers ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (5) ◽  
pp. 1132
Author(s):  
Javier A. Menendez ◽  
Adriana Papadimitropoulou ◽  
Travis Vander Steen ◽  
Elisabet Cuyàs ◽  
Bharvi P. Oza-Gajera ◽  
...  

The identification of clinically important molecular mechanisms driving endocrine resistance is a priority in estrogen receptor-positive (ER+) breast cancer. Although both genomic and non-genomic cross-talk between the ER and growth factor receptors such as human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2) has frequently been associated with both experimental and clinical endocrine therapy resistance, combined targeting of ER and HER2 has failed to improve overall survival in endocrine non-responsive disease. Herein, we questioned the role of fatty acid synthase (FASN), a lipogenic enzyme linked to HER2-driven breast cancer aggressiveness, in the development and maintenance of hormone-independent growth and resistance to anti-estrogens in ER/HER2-positive (ER+/HER2+) breast cancer. The stimulatory effects of estradiol on FASN gene promoter activity and protein expression were blunted by anti-estrogens in endocrine-responsive breast cancer cells. Conversely, an AKT/MAPK-related constitutive hyperactivation of FASN gene promoter activity was unaltered in response to estradiol in non-endocrine responsive ER+/HER2+ breast cancer cells, and could be further enhanced by tamoxifen. Pharmacological blockade with structurally and mechanistically unrelated FASN inhibitors fully impeded the strong stimulatory activity of tamoxifen on the soft-agar colony forming capacity—an in vitro metric of tumorigenicity—of ER+/HER2+ breast cancer cells. In vivo treatment with a FASN inhibitor completely prevented the agonistic tumor-promoting activity of tamoxifen and fully restored its estrogen antagonist properties against ER/HER2-positive xenograft tumors in mice. Functional cancer proteomic data from The Cancer Proteome Atlas (TCPA) revealed that the ER+/HER2+ subtype was the highest FASN protein expressor compared to basal-like, HER2-enriched, and ER+/HER2-negative breast cancer groups. FASN is a biological determinant of HER2-driven endocrine resistance in ER+ breast cancer. Next-generation, clinical-grade FASN inhibitors may be therapeutically relevant to countering resistance to tamoxifen in FASN-overexpressing ER+/HER2+ breast carcinomas.


2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jamunarani Veeraraghavan ◽  
Carolina Gutierrez ◽  
Vidyalakshmi Sethunath ◽  
Sepideh Mehravaran ◽  
Mario Giuliano ◽  
...  

AbstractLapatinib (L) plus trastuzumab (T), with endocrine therapy for estrogen receptor (ER)+ tumors, but without chemotherapy, yielded meaningful response in HER2+ breast cancer (BC) neoadjuvant trials. The irreversible/pan-HER inhibitor neratinib (N) has proven more potent than L. However, the efficacy of N+T in comparison to pertuzumab (P) + T or L + T (without chemotherapy) remains less studied. To address this, mice bearing HER2+ BT474-AZ (ER+) cell and BCM-3963 patient-derived BC xenografts were randomized to vehicle, N, T, P, N+T, or P+T, with simultaneous estrogen deprivation for BT474-AZ. Time to tumor regression/progression and incidence/time to complete response (CR) were determined. Changes in key HER pathway and proliferative markers were assessed by immunohistochemistry and western blot of short-term-treated tumors. In the BT474-AZ model, while all N, P, T, N + T, and P + T treated tumors regressed, N + T-treated tumors regressed faster than P, T, and P + T. Further, N + T was superior to N and T alone in accelerating CR. In the BCM-3963 model, which was refractory to T, P, and P + T, while N and N + T yielded 100% CR, N + T accelerated the CR compared to N. Ki67, phosphorylated (p) AKT, pS6, and pERK levels were largely inhibited by N and N + T, but not by T, P, or P + T. Phosphorylated HER receptor levels were also markedly inhibited by N and N + T, but not by P + T or L + T. Our findings establish the efficacy of combining N with T and support clinical testing to investigate the efficacy of N + T with or without chemotherapy in the neoadjuvant setting for HER2+ BC.


2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jose G. Bazan ◽  
Sachin R. Jhawar ◽  
Daniel Stover ◽  
Ko Un Park ◽  
Sasha Beyer ◽  
...  

AbstractIn the modern era, highly effective anti-HER2 therapy is associated with low local-regional recurrence (LRR) rates for early-stage HER2+ breast cancer raising the question of whether local therapy de-escalation by radiation omission is possible in patients with small-node negative tumors treated with lumpectomy. To evaluate existing data on radiation omission, we used the National Cancer Database (NCDB) to test the hypothesis that RT omission results in equivalent overall survival (OS) in stage 1 (T1N0) HER2+ breast cancer. We excluded patients that received neoadjuvant systemic therapy. We stratified the cohort by receipt of adjuvant radiation. We identified 6897 patients (6388 RT; 509 no RT). Patients that did not receive radiation tended to be ≥70 years-old (odds ratio [OR] = 3.69, 95% CI: 3.02–4.51, p < 0.0001), to have ≥1 comorbidity (OR = 1.33, 95% CI: 1.06–1.68, p = 0.0154), to be Hispanic (OR = 1.49, 95% CI: 1.00–2.22, p = 0.049), and to live in lower income areas (OR = 1.32, 95% CI: 1.07–1.64, p = 0.0266). Radiation omission was associated with a 3.67-fold (95% CI: 2.23–6.02, p < 0.0001) increased risk of death. While other selection biases that influence radiation omission likely persist, these data should give caution to radiation omission in T1N0 HER2+ breast cancer.


2021 ◽  
Vol 108 (Supplement_1) ◽  
Author(s):  
C Zabkiewicz ◽  
L Ye ◽  
R Hargest

Abstract Introduction HER2 over-expression denotes poor prognosis in breast cancers.Bone morphogenetic protein(BMP) signalling is known to interact with EGF signalling, co-regulating breast cancer progression.BMP antagonist Gremlin-1 may influence breast cancer disease progression, but this remains unexplored in HER2 positive breast cancers. Method GREM1 and HER2 expression, and clinical outcomes were examined in clinical cohorts.GREM1 overexpression or pEF control plasmid were transduced into BT474 HER2+breast cancer cells. In vitro function tests using BT474 pEF and BT474GREM1cells include 2D/3D growth, migration, and expression of epithelial to mesenchymal transition(EMT)markers. Signalling cascades were examined in BT474 treated with RhGremlin-1. In vivo, BALB/c nude mice underwent either mammary injection or intra-cardiac injection of BT474pEF or BT474GREM1 cells and disease burden assessed. Result GREM1 expression correlates with HER2 in breast tumours(p=0.03) and is higher in metastatic HER2 positive cancers (p = 0.04). HER2 positive patients with high GREM1 have poor survival(p = 0.0002). BT474GREM1cells have up-regulated markers of EMT compared to control. BT474 RhGremlin-1 treated cells have active AKT pathway signalling, independent of BMP signalling. In vitro,  BT474GREM1cells significantly proliferate and migrate compared to control(p&lt;0.05 and p &lt; 0.001).This is confirmed in vivo,  BT474GREM1 mice grew significantly larger mammary tumours(p&lt;0.05) and had more PETCT metastatic hotspots. Conclusion Gremlin-1 is correlated with poor outcomes in HER2 patients and promotes breast cancer cellular growth, migration and metastasis.Gremlin-1 is a novel area of research with potential as a prognostic biomarker and therapeutic target for personalised, effective, breast cancer outcomes. Take-home message BMP antagonists are gaining interest for their potential in breast cancer prognosis and therapeutics.This novel area of research shows BMP antagonist Gremlin-1 is of importance in HER2 positive breast cancers. DRAGONS DEN


2021 ◽  
Vol 32 ◽  
pp. S437-S438
Author(s):  
M. López Flores ◽  
E. Honrado Franco ◽  
L.F. Sánchez Couisido ◽  
C. Minguito Carazo ◽  
M.E. Vallejo Pascual ◽  
...  

2021 ◽  
Vol 39 (15_suppl) ◽  
pp. 1044-1044
Author(s):  
Erica Michelle Stringer-Reasor ◽  
Barbara Jane O'Brien ◽  
Ariel Topletz-Erickson ◽  
Jason B White ◽  
Mina Lobbous ◽  
...  

1044 Background: Tucatinib is a potent and highly selective HER2-targeted tyrosine kinase inhibitor approved for use in combination with trastuzumab and capecitabine for patients with metastatic HER2+ breast cancer (MBC) who have received ≥1 prior HER2-based regimen in the metastatic setting, including patients with brain metastases (BM). TBCRC049 (NCT03501979) is an investigator-initiated phase 2 single-arm study currently enrolling to evaluate the safety and efficacy of tucatinib, trastuzumab and capecitabine in HER2+ BC with newly diagnosed LM. Here, we report the pre-specified pharmacokinetic (PK) analysis for the first 15 patients to determine bioavailability of tucatinib and its predominant metabolite, ONT-993, in the CSF. Methods: Eligible patients included adults with HER2+ MBC, KPS > 50, and newly diagnosed, untreated LM (defined as positive CSF cytology and/or radiographic evidence of LM, plus clinical signs/symptoms). Patients with treated or concurrent/new BM were allowed. The primary endpoint is overall survival with an accrual goal of 30 pts. Parallel PK samples were collected in plasma and CSF via Ommaya reservoir on day 1 of cycles 1 and 2 at 0h (baseline), 2-3h, 5-7h and 24h (optional) following initiation of tucatinib 300 mg BID. Tucatinib and ONT-993 were quantified in plasma (n=15) and CSF (n=13) using validated liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry methods. Results: Tucatinib and ONT-993 plasma concentrations were consistent with previous studies and exhibited high interindividual variability. Tucatinib and ONT-993 were detectable in the CSF within 2 hours post tucatinib administration; concentrations ranged from 0.57 to 25 ng/mL for tucatinib (IC50 for tucatinib against HER2 is 3.3 ng/mL) and 0.28 to 4.7 ng/mL for ONT-993. Tucatinib concentrations in the CSF per timepoint were in a similar range to unbound plasma (plasmaub) tucatinib. CSF to plasmaub ratios were generally consistent over time; the steady-state (cycle 2) median tucatinib CSF to plasmaub ratio was 0.83 (0.19 to 2.1). ONT-993 CSF to plasmaub ratios were similar to tucatinib CSF to plasmaub ratios. Conclusions: In patients with LM from HER2+MBC who were treated with tucatinib, trastuzumab, and capecitabine, tucatinib and ONT-993 were detectable in the CSF of all patients at median levels similar to plasmaub tucatinib. This is the first documented evidence of tucatinib distributing into the CSF in patients with HER2+MBC. Efficacy and safety of tucatinib, trastuzumab, and capecitabine in patients with HER2+ LM will be reported upon completion of TBCRC 049 accrual. Clinical trial information: NCT03501979 .


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