Ten cytoselective compounds have been identified from 372 thiazolidinone analogues by applying iterative library approaches. These compounds selectively killed both non-small cell lung cancer cell line H460 and its paclitaxel-resistant variant H460 taxR at an IC 50 between 0.21 and 2.93 microM while showing much less toxicity to normal human fibroblasts at concentrations up to 195 microM. Structure-activity relationship studies revealed that (1) the nitrogen atom on the 4-thiazolidinone ring (ring B in Figure 1) cannot be substituted, (2) several substitutions on ring A are tolerated at various positions, and (3) the substitution on ring C is restricted to the -NMe 2 group at the 4-position. A pharmacophore derived from active molecules suggested that two hydrogen bond acceptors and three hydrophobic regions were common features. Activities against P-gp-overexpressing and paclitaxel-resistant cell line H460 taxR and modeling using a previously validated P-gp substrate pharmacophore suggested that active compounds were not likely P-gp substrates.

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Molecular annotated patient-derived xenograft (PDX) models are useful for the preclinical investigation of anticancer drugs and individualized anticancer therapy. We established 23 PDXs from 88 surgical specimens of lung cancer patients and determined gene mutations in these PDXs and their paired primary tumors by ultradeep exome sequencing on 202 cancer-related genes. The numbers of primary tumors with deleterious mutations in TP53, KRAS, PI3KCA, ALK, STK11, and EGFR were 43.5%, 21.7%, 17.4%, 17.4%, 13.0%, and 8.7%, respectively. Other genes with deleterious mutations in ≥3 (13.0%) primary tumors were MLL3, SETD2, ATM, ARID1A, CRIPAK, HGF, BAI3, EP300, KDR, PDGRRA and RUNX1. Of 315 mutations detected in the primary tumors, 293 (93%) were also detected in their corresponding PDXs, indicating that PDXs have the capacity to recapitulate the mutations in primary tumors. Nevertheless, a substantial number of mutations had higher allele frequencies in the PDXs than in the primary tumors, or were not detectable in the primary tumor, suggesting the possibility of tumor cell enrichment in PDXs or heterogeneity in the primary tumors. The molecularly annotated PDXs generated from this study could be useful for future translational studies.

K-Ras mutations are frequently found in various cancers and are associated with resistance to treatment or poor prognosis. Similarly, poor outcomes have recently been observed in cancer patients with overexpression of protein kinase C iota (PKCI), an atypical protein kinase C that is activated by oncogenic Ras protein and is required for K-Ras-induced transformation and colonic carcinogenesis in vivo. Thus far, there is no effective agent for treatment of cancers with K-Ras mutations or PKCI overexpression. By synthetic lethality screening, we identified a small compound (designated oncrasin-1) that effectively kills various human lung cancer cells with K-Ras mutations at low or submicromolar concentrations. The cytotoxic effects correlated with apoptosis induction, as was evidenced by increase of apoptotic cells and activation of caspase-3 and caspase-8 upon the treatment of oncrasin-1 in sensitive cells. Treatment with oncrasin-1 also led to abnormal aggregation of PKCI in the nucleus of sensitive cells but not in resistant cells. Furthermore, oncrasin-1-induced apoptosis was blocked by siRNA of K-Ras or PKCI, suggesting that oncrasin-1 is targeted to a novel K-Ras/PKCI pathway. The in vivo administration of oncrasin-1 suppressed the growth of K-ras mutant human lung tumor xenografts by >70% and prolonged the survival of nude mice bearing these tumors, without causing detectable toxicity. Our results indicate that oncrasin-1 or its active analogues could be a novel class of anticancer agents, which effectively kill K-Ras mutant cancer cells. [Cancer Res 2008;68(18):7403-8]

Auranofin, a gold complex that has been used to treat rheumatoid arthritis in clinics and has documented pharmacokinetic and safety profiles in humans, has recently been investigated for its anticancer activity in leukemia and some solid cancers. However, auranofin's single agent activity in lung cancer is not well characterized. To determine whether auranofin has single agent activity in lung cancer, we evaluated auranofin's activity in a panel of 10 non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) cell lines. Cell viability analysis revealed that auranofin induced growth inhibition in a subset of NSCLC cell lines with a half maximal inhibitory concentration (IC50) below 1.0 μM. Treatment with auranofin elicited apoptosis and necroptosis in auranofin-sensitive cell lines. Moreover, the susceptibility of NSCLC cells to auranofin was inversely correlated with TXNRD1 expression in the cells. Transient transfection of the TXNRD1-expressing plasmid in auranofin-sensitive Calu3 cells resulted in partial resistance, indicating that high TXNRD level is one of causal factors for resistance to auranofin. Further mechanistic characterization with proteomic analysis revealed that auranofin inhibits expression and/or phosphorylation of multiple key nodes in the PI3K/AKT/mTOR pathway, including S6, 4EBP1, Rictor, p70S6K, mTOR, TSC2, AKT and GSK3. Ectopic expression of TXNRD1 partially reversed auranofin-mediated PI3K/AKT/mTOR inhibition, suggesting that TXNRD1 may participate in the regulation of PI3K/AKT/mTOR pathway. Administration of auranofin to mice with xenograft tumors derived from NSCLC cells significantly suppressed tumor growth without inducing obvious toxic effects. Our results demonstrated feasibility of repurposing auranofin for treatment of lung cancer.

Ibrutinib, which irreversibly inhibits Bruton tyrosine kinase, was evaluated for antitumor activity in a panel of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) cell lines and found to selectively inhibit growth of NSCLC cells carrying mutations in the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) gene, including T790M mutant and erlotinib-resistant H1975 cells. Ibrutinib induced dose-dependent inhibition of phosphor-EGFR at both Y1068 and Y1173 sites, suggesting ibrutinib functions as an EGFR inhibitor. Survival was analyzed by Kaplan-Meier estimation and log-rank test. All statistical tests were two-sided. In vivo study showed that ibrutinib statistically significantly suppressed H1975 tumor growth and prolonged survival of the tumor bearing mice (n = 5 per group). The mean survival times for solvent- and erlotinib-treated mice were both 17.8 days (95% confidence interval [CI] = 14.3 to 21.3 days), while the mean survival time for ibrutinib-treated mice was 29.8 days (95% CI = 26.0 to 33.6 days, P = .008). Our results indicate that ibrutinib could be a candidate drug for treatment of EGFR-mutant NSCLC, including erlotinib-resistant tumors.

Glutathione (GSH)/GSH reductase (GSR) and thioredoxin/ thioredoxin reductase (TXNRD) are two major compensating thiol-dependent antioxidant pathways that maintain protein dithiol/disulfide balance. We hypothesized that functional deficiency in one of these systems would render cells dependent on compensation by the other system for survival, providing a mechanism-based synthetic lethality approach for treatment of cancers. The human GSR gene is located on chromosome 8p12, a region frequently lost in human cancers. GSR deletion was detected in about 6% of lung adenocarcinomas in The Cancer Genome Atlas database. To test whether loss of GSR sensitizes cancer cells to TXNRD inhibition, we knocked out or knocked down the GSR gene in human lung cancer cells and evaluated their response to the TXNRD inhibitor auranofin. GSR deficiency sensitized lung cancer cells to this agent. Analysis of a panel of 129 non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) cell lines revealed that auranofin sensitivity correlated with the expression levels of the GSR, glutamatecysteine ligase catalytic subunit (GCLC), and NAD(P)H quinone dehydrogenase 1 (NQO1) genes. In NSCLC patientderived xenografts with reduced expression of GSR and/or GCLC, growth was significantly suppressed by treatment with auranofin. Together, these results provide a proof of concept that cancers with compromised expression of enzymes required for GSH homeostasis or with chromosome 8p deletions that include the GSR gene may be targeted by a synthetic lethality strategy with inhibitors of TXNRD.Significance: These findings demonstrate that lung cancers with compromised expression of enzymes required for glutathione homeostasis, including reduced GSR gene expression, may be targeted by thioredoxin/thioredoxin reductase inhibitors.

To optimize the antitumor activity of oncrasin-1, a small molecule RNA polymerase II inhibitor, we evaluated 69 oncrasin-1 analogues for their cytotoxic activity against normal human epithelial cells and K-Ras mutant tumor cells. About 40 of those compounds were as potent as or more potent than oncrasin-1 in tumor cells and had minimal cytotoxic effect on normal cells. Structure-activity relationship analysis revealed that most of the active compounds contained either a hydroxymethyl group or an aldehyde group as a substitute at the 3-position of the indole. Both electron-donating and electron-withdrawing groups in the benzene ring were well tolerated. The hydroxymethyl compounds ranged from equipotent with to 100 times as potent as the corresponding aldehyde compounds. We tested 3 active analogues’ effect on RNA polymerase phosphorylation and found that they all inhibited phosphorylation of the C-terminal domain of RNA polymerase II, suggesting that the active compounds might act through the same mechanisms as oncrasin-1.