Abstract 538: Establishment of PARP inhibitor-induced resistant patient-derived ovarian cancer xenograft models
Authors: Hua Li , Li Shuang , Nie Chenpan , Chen Xiaobo , Sheng Guo , Bourre Ludovic , Wang Jingjing 
Published: March 2024

Introduction: Poly (ADP-ribose) polymerases (PARPs) can recruit DNA repair effectors and cope with DNA single-strand breaks. For DNA double-strand breaks (DSB), there are two main repair mechanisms: non-homologous end joining repair (NHEJ) which is prone to error due to infidelity events, and BRCA1/2 mediated homologous recombination repair (HR) restoring the original sequence. Therefore, inhibition of PARPs may cause both single stranded break repair deficiency and HR deficiency in BRCA1/2 deficient patients, leading to cell death. The concept of “synthetic lethality” has led to the development of PARP inhibitors, including Olaparib, Niraparib and Rucaparib in clinical practice. Despite encouraging efficacy of these PARP inhibitors, acquired resistance, such as HR repair restoration, drug efflux pump upregulation and replication fork protection, has limited their clinical benefits. Therefore, to investigate novel therapeutic strategies which can overcome the acquired resistance, we established patient-derived xenograft (PDX) ovarian cancer models with PARP inhibitor-induced resistance.

Methods: OV9402, an ovarian cancer PDX model with BRCA 1 c.3155del, was implanted subcutaneously and treated with Niraparib at 35 mg/kg, daily, for 129 days. Relapse tumors (tumor #1 and tumor #2) were isolated and inoculated into naïve mice. Then the 2nd round of treatment (Niraparib, 35 mg/kg, daily) was given when the mean tumor volume reached 140 mm3. The tumors showing no significant response to Niraparib were collected on either day 32 (#1 derived tumor model) and day 22 (#2 derived tumor model) after randomization and their gene changes were analyzed by RNA sequencing (RNA-seq).

Results: Niraparib significantly inhibited OV9402 tumor growth, with complete regression observed in nine out of ten mice on day 54 after the 1st round of treatment. However, tumor regrowth was observed in two out of the nine mice from day 68 onwards. The relapsed tumors (tumor #1 and tumor #2) from these two mice were collected and re-inoculated into 5 naïve mice to establish tumor models for the 2nd round of Niraparib treatment, separately. For #1 derived tumor model, all the tumors presented complete resistance to the Niraparib treatment. RNA-seq data showed that the gene expression of ABCB1, which encodes for efflux pumps, was upregulated. In parallel, complete resistance to Niraparib was observed in all the tumors derived from 2# tumor bearing mice. The RNA-seq data demonstrated that an acquired secondary genetic deletion on BRCA1 genes, which restored the functional protein expression loss in the parental line and restored HR repair, was found in the tumors.

Conclusion: Ovarian cancer PDX models that have effectively developed resistance to PARP inhibitors have the potential to serve as valuable preclinical tools to evaluate potential next-generation PARP inhibitors and innovative combination strategies.

Citation Format: Li Hua, Shuang Li, Chenpan Nie, Xiaobo Chen, Guo Sheng, Ludovic Bourre, Jingjing Wang. Establishment of PARP inhibitor-induced resistant patient-derived ovarian cancer xenograft models [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2024; Part 1 (Regular Abstracts); 2024 Apr 5-10; San Diego, CA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2024;84(6_Suppl):Abstract nr 538.