Issue 6, 2011

A genome-wide RNAi screen identifies novel targets of neratinib sensitivity leading to neratinib and paclitaxel combination drug treatments

Abstract

ErbB2 is frequently activated in tumors, and influences a wide array of cellular functions, including proliferation, apoptosis, cell motility and adhesion. HKI-272 (neratinib) is a small molecule pan-kinase inhibitor of the ErbB family of receptor tyrosine kinases, and shows strong antiproliferative activity in ErbB2-overexpressing breast cancer cells. We undertook a genome-wide pooled lentiviral RNAi screen to identify synthetic lethal or enhancer (synthetic modulator screen) genes that interact with neratinib in a human breast cancer cell line (SKBR-3). These genes upon knockdown would modulate cell viability in the presence of subeffective concentrations of neratinib. We discovered a diverse set of genes whose depletion selectively impaired or enhanced the viability of SKBR-3 cells in the presence of neratinib. We observed diverse pathways including EGFR, hypoxia, cAMP, and protein ubiquitination that, when co-treated with RNAi and neratinib, resulted in arrest of cell proliferation. Examining the changes of these genes and their protein products also led to a rationale for clinically relevant drug combination treatments. Treatment of cells with either paclitaxel or cytarabine in combination with neratinib resulted in a strong antiproliferative effect. The identification of novel mediators of cellular response to neratinib and the development of potential drug combination treatments have expanded our understanding of neratinib's mode-of-action for the development of more effective therapeutic regimens. Notably, our findings support a paclitaxel and neratinib phase III clinical trial in breast cancer patients.

Graphical abstract: A genome-wide RNAi screen identifies novel targets of neratinib sensitivity leading to neratinib and paclitaxel combination drug treatments

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
22 Nov 2010
Accepted
03 Mar 2011
First published
12 Apr 2011
This article is Open Access

Mol. BioSyst., 2011,7, 1974-1989

A genome-wide RNAi screen identifies novel targets of neratinib sensitivity leading to neratinib and paclitaxel combination drug treatments

A. A. Seyhan, U. Varadarajan, S. Choe, Y. Liu, J. McGraw, M. Woods, S. Murray, A. Eckert, W. Liu and T. E. Ryan, Mol. BioSyst., 2011, 7, 1974 DOI: 10.1039/C0MB00294A

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