Abstract 2667: PARG inhibition augments CHK1 inhibitor-induced replication stress and synergistically kills ovarian cancer cells
Authors: Acharya Ganesh , Mani Chinnadurai , Reedy Mark B. , Palle Komaraiah 
Published: June 2023

Ovarian cancer (OC) is one of the leading causes of cancer-related deaths in women in the United States. PARP inhibitors showed promising clinical responses; however, most of the patients eventually relapse and succumb to the resistant disease. Currently, it lacks effective therapies to prevent and treat OC, which warrants novel drugs and combination therapies to improve patients' prognoses. Epithelial OCs are heavily dependent on ATR-CHK1-mediated DNA damage checkpoint signaling for survival, which is also regulated by hedgehog/GLI1 (Hh) signaling in cancer cells. However, both Hh/GLI1 and CHK1 inhibitors failed to show promising results in clinical trials as single agents. Poly(ADP-ribose) glycohydrolase (PARG) is the critical enzyme that removes Poly-ADP ribosylated (PARylated) proteins upon replication stress. We hypothesized that inhibition of PARG could amplify CHK1 inhibitor-induced replication stress by trapping PARylated proteins on the chromatin and compromising DNA repair and causing a metabolic and mitotic catastrophe. We evaluated CHK1 inhibitor prexasertib in combination with PARG inhibitor (PARGi) to target metabolic and DNA repair crosstalk to effectively kill OC cells and to overcome resistance. Our studies demonstrate that prexasertib treatment induces PARylation by inducing replication stress. Similarly, PARG inhibition by (PDD00017273) fails to remove PARylation and activates checkpoint kinase 1 (CHK1) by phosphorylating at S296, S317, and S345 in OC cells. Based on these observations, we hypothesized that a combination of CHK1 and PARG inhibition would augment oncogenic replication stress in OC cells and cause increased DNA damage and cell death. Interestingly, our evaluation of prexasertib and PARGi combination treatment by clonogenic survival and MTT assays showed synergistic killing in a panel of OC cells, including in isogenic chemoresistant models as well as 3D organoid models of primary OC cells compared to individual drugs. As predicted, combined treatment increased DNA double-strand breaks as demonstrated by COMET assays, and increased γH2AX foci, pRPA32 foci, perturbed S/G2 phase arrest, and nuclear disintegration relative to individual-drug treatment. Furthermore, significant depletion of NAD+ levels was seen in PARGi-treated OC cells compared to untreated cells. Together, these results indicate that this combination treatment cause persistence of heavy PARylation at DNA damage sites abrogates cell cycle checkpoint mechanisms, exhausts cellular NAD+ levels, and inhibits DNA repair leading to the metabolic and mitotic collapse of cancer cells and synergistic lethality in OC cells. Currently, prexasertib is under clinical trials and our studies will provide novel mechanistic insight into the therapeutic potential of this combination and provides preclinical evidence to develop further this combination therapy in treating OC.

Citation Format: Ganesh Acharya, Chinnadurai Mani, Mark B. Reedy, Komaraiah Palle. PARG inhibition augments CHK1 inhibitor-induced replication stress and synergistically kills ovarian cancer cells [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2023; Part 1 (Regular and Invited Abstracts); 2023 Apr 14-19; Orlando, FL. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2023;83(7_Suppl):Abstract nr 2667.