Project description:First line treatment for EML4-ALK fusion-positive lung cancer patient is the use of an ALK tyrosine kinase inhibitor (TKI), such as alectinib. While most patients initially respond to this therapy, many patients often develop relapse, and efficacious therapies for patients with relapse disease are limited. To study EML4-ALK fusion-positive lung cancer, novel murine lung cancer cell lines were generated from C57BL/6 mice using an intratracheally injected Adeno-virus that contains Cas9 and guide RNAs for the EML4-ALK translocation, which leads to the development of lung tumors. Cell lines were derived from these tumors. In an effort to better understand how cells respond to alectinib, we treated EML4-ALK-positive murine cell lines (EA1, EA2, and EA3 cells) in vitro for 1-7 days with either 100nM alectinib or DMSO-control. At each time point, RNA was isolated from each condition. RNA was submitted to RNA-seq. Differential analysis on the RNA-seq data was performed to determine and track gene changes over time between control and treated cells. These data will allow us to better develop novel therapeutics to use in conjunction with alectinib when treating EML4-ALK fusion-positive patients.
Project description:Anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK) fusion variants in non-small-cell-lung cancer (NSCLC) consist of numerous dimerising fusion partners, with the most common being EML4. Clinical data suggests that the degree of treatment benefit in response to ALK tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) differs among the variant present in the patient tumor. Therefore, a better understanding the oncogenic signaling networks driven by different ALK-fusion variants is important. Here, we developed highly controlled doxycycline-inducible cell models bearing four different ALK fusion proteins, namely EML4-ALK-V1, EML4-ALK-V3, KIF5B-ALK, and TFG-ALK, in the context of non-tumorigenic NL20 human bronchial epithelial cells. These were complimented by patient-derived NSCLC cell lines harboring either EML4-ALK-V1 or EML4-ALK-V3 fusions. RNAseq and phosphoproteomics analysis were employed to identify dysregulated genes and hyper/hypo-phosphorylated proteins associated with ALK fusion expression. Among ALK fusion induced responses, we noted a robust inflammatory signature that included up-regulation of the Serpin B4 serine protease inhibitor in both NL20-inducible cell models and ALK-positive NSCLC patient-derived cell lines. We show that STAT3 is a major transcriptional regulator of SERPINB4 downstream of ALK fusions, along with NF-B and AP1. The upregulation of SERPINB4 promotes survival of ALK fusion expressing cells and inhibits natural killer (NK) cell-mediated cytotoxicity. In conclusion, our study reveals a novel ALK downstream survival axis that regulates Serpin B4 expression and identifies a molecular target that has potential for therapeutic impact targeting the immune response together with ALK TKIs in NSCLC.
Project description:Background: Chromosomal inversions involving anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK) and echinoderm microtubule associated protein like 4 (EML4) generate a fusion protein EML4-ALK in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). The understanding of EML4-ALK function can be improved by a functional study using normal human cells. Methods: Here we for the first time conduct such study to examine the effects of EML4-ALK on cell proliferation, cellular senescence, DNA damage, gene expression profiles and transformed phenotypes. Results: The lentiviral expression of EML4-ALK in mortal, normal human fibroblasts caused, through its constitutive ALK kinase activity, an early induction of cellular senescence with accumulated DNA damage, upregulation of p16INK4A and p21WAF1, and senescence-associated -galactosidase (SA-β-gal) activity. In contrast, when EML4-ALK was expressed in normal human fibroblasts transduced with telomerase reverse transcriptase (hTERT), which is activated in the vast majority of NSCLC, the cells showed accelerated proliferation and acquired anchorage-independent growth ability in soft-agar medium, without accumulated DNA damage, chromosome aberration, nor p53 mutation. EML4-ALK induced the phosphorylation of STAT3 in both mortal and hTERT-transduced cells, but RNA sequencing analysis suggested that the different signaling pathways contributed to the different phenotypic outcomes in these cells. While EML4-ALK also induced anchorage-independent growth in hTERT-immortalized human bronchial epithelial cells in vitro, the expression of EML4-ALK alone did not cause detectable in vivo tumorigenicity in immunodeficient mice. Conclusions: Our data indicate that the expression of hTERT is critical for EML4-ALK to manifest its in vitro transforming activity in human cells. This study provides the isogenic pairs of human cells with and without EML4-ALK expression.
Project description:Metastasis poses a major challenge in cancer management, including EML4-ALK-rearranged non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). As cell migration is a critical step during metastasis, we assessed the anti-migratory activities of several clinical ALK inhibitors in NSCLC cells and observed differential anti-migratory capabilities despite similar ALK inhibition, with brigatinib displaying superior anti-migratory effects over other ALK inhibitors. Applying an unbiased in-situ mass spectrometry-based chemoproteomics approach, we determined the proteome-wide target profile of brigatinib in EML4-ALK+ NSCLC cells. Dose-dependent and cross-competitive chemoproteomics suggested MARK2 and MARK3 as relevant brigatinib kinase targets. Functional validation showed that combined pharmacological inhibition or genetic modulation of MARK2/3 inhibited cell migration. Consistently, brigatinib treatment induced inhibitory YAP1 phosphorylation downstream of MARK2/3. Collectively, our data suggest that brigatinib exhibits unusual cross-phenotype polypharmacology as despite similar efficacy for inhibiting EML4-ALK-dependent cell proliferation as other ALK inhibitors, it more effectively prevented migration of NSCLC cells due to co-targeting of MARK2/3.
Project description:Starting with H3122 cells, which harbor the EML4-ALK E13;A20 fusion and are known to be sensitive to ALK tyrosine kinase inhibitors, we generated isogenic pairs of ALK TKI sensitive and ALK TKI resistant cell lines using established methods (see Chmeliecki, J et al Science Trans Med 2011). We modeled resistance against the currently FDA approved ALK TKI, crizotinib (also called PF-1066). We also modeled resistance against a novel more potent ALK inhibitor, X-376 (ref: Lovly, CM et al Cancer Research 2011). We compared gene expression profiles between the 'parental' (ALK TKI sensitive) H3122 cells and the drug resistant cells (H3122 CR for Crizotinib resistant cells and H3122 XR for X-376 resistant cells).
Project description:To clarify the downstream signal pathway of EML4-ALK in NSCLC, we performed Affymetrix GeneChip analysis using ALK inhibitor CH5424802-treated NCI-H2228 xenograft tumors, and comprehensively characterized the gene expression regulated by inhibition of activated ALK.
Project description:Anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK) is expressed in around 60% of glioblastomas and conveys tumorigenic function. Therefore, ALK inhibitory strategies with alectinib were investigated in glioblastoma cells. We demonstrated that alectinib inhibited proliferation and clonogenicity of ALK expressing glioblastoma initiating cells, whereas cells without ALK expression or after ALK depletion via knockdown showed primary resistance against alectinib. The aim of this analysis was to investigate molecular mechanisms of alectinib mediated treatment effects in the ALK expressing S24 cells, which represent a primary glioblastoma cell culture, and after knockdown of ALK.