Abstract 2087: Targeting lipid metabolism in pancreatic cancer
Authors: Cheng Caleb , Wisniewski Jasmine P. , Korkaya Ahmet , Jackson Bailey , Mannan Rahul , Mahapatra Somnath , Rossiter Nicholas , Bhattacharyya Rupam , Morlacchi Pietro , Peters Sydney , Qiao Yuanyuan , Lyssiotis Costas A. , Chinnaiyan Arul M. 
Published: March 2024

Background PIKfyve is a lipid kinase that serves as the sole source of cellular PI(3,5)P2 and PI5P, critical phosphatidylinositols for autophagy and lysosome function. Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is known to upregulate and depend on lysosomal functions such as autophagy to exist in its harsh, nutrient-disrupted microenvironment. Thus, we aimed to establish PIKfyve as a therapeutic target in PDAC. Using a PIKfyve-knockout genetically engineered mouse model of pancreatic cancer (KC and KPC), we determined that PIKfyve was necessary for PDAC development. Given these results, we hypothesized that PIKfyve was critical for maintaining metabolic homeostasis in PDAC and that inhibiting PIKfyve would be an efficacious therapeutic strategy for PDAC.

Methods and results We first validated the known role of PIKfyve in regulating autophagy using CRISPRi mediated knockdown, PIKfyve inhibitors Apilimod and ESK981, and a PIKfyve degrader, which all demonstrated that PIKfyve perturbation disrupted autophagic flux and suppressed PDAC cell growth. Little is known about the metabolic impacts of PIKfyve inhibition in PDAC beyond disruption of autophagy. Thus, we paired RNA-seq and a metabolic CRISPR screen to discover that PIKfyve inhibition obligated PDAC cells to upregulate de novo lipid synthesis. Specifically, PDAC cells upregulated fatty acid synthesis genes ACACA and FASN upon PIKfyve inhibition. Additionally, these genes were synthetically critical in the context of PIKfyve inhibition. We further performed metabolomics and lipidomics which revealed accumulation of sphingolipids upon PIKfyve inhibition. Given this, we concluded that PIKfyve regulates lipid homeostasis in PDAC. To further establish PIKfyve as a target in PDAC, we investigated the role of PIKfyve upon inhibition of KRAS, which drives PDAC through MAPK pathway signaling. First, KRAS/MAPK inhibition diminished expression of FASN and ACACA, genes synthetically essential upon PIKfyve inhibition. Additionally, KRAS/MAPK inhibition upregulated autophagy which was attenuated upon concurrent PIKfyve inhibition. Given this metabolic conflict between KRAS/MAPK and PIKfyve, we assessed the effects of dual inhibiting KRAS/MAPK and PIKfyve in a syngeneic orthotopic model. Encouragingly, combination therapy of trametinib (MEK inhibitor) and ESK981 eliminated tumor burden in most of mice, while single treatments only had modest effects. Further, we established a patient-derived xenograft model and showed that while the treatment with individual compounds trametinib, MRTX-1133 (KRASG12D inhibitor), and ESK981 all suppressed tumor growth, the combination of ESK981 and trametinib or ESK981 and MRTX-1133 caused substantial tumor regression in nearly all mice. Taken together, targeting lipid metabolism through inhibition of PIKfyve is a promising therapeutic strategy for PDAC, particularly in combination with the numerous KRAS/MAPK inhibitors in clinical development.

Citation Format: Caleb Cheng, Jasmine P. Wisniewski, Ahmet Korkaya, Bailey Jackson, Rahul Mannan, Somnath Mahapatra, Nicholas Rossiter, Rupam Bhattacharyya, Pietro Morlacchi, Sydney Peters, Yuanyuan Qiao, Costas A. Lyssiotis, Arul M. Chinnaiyan. Targeting lipid metabolism in pancreatic cancer [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 2087.