Abstract 1835: Transcriptome and metabolome reprogramming in EGFR-mutant NSCLC early adaptive drug-escape against erlotinib
Authors: Ma Patrick C. , Thiagarajan Praveena S. , Leahy Patrick , Bagai Rakesh , Shi Ivy , Zhang Wei , Feng Yan , Veigl Martina L. , Lindner Daniel , Danielpour David , Yin Lihong 
Published: May 2015

Background. Advanced NSCLC with sensitizing EGFR mutation is being treated with EGFR inhibitor first-line. Despite initial tumor response, targeted therapy invariably fails due to acquired resistance. Classical studies of acquired drug resistance focusing on late clinical events in rebiopsy studies have identified some resistance mechanisms including T790M-EGFR, MET amplification and AXL upregulation.

Methods. HCC827 and PC-9 NSCLC cells (sensitizing EGFR exon 19-del) were used in vitro and in vivo drug-sensitive models. MTS viability assay, TLVM cell mobility assay, immunoblot and immunofluorescence and in vivo xenograft IHC analysis were performed. Transcriptome analysis of HCC827 cells under erlotinib inhibition time-course was performed using Affymetrix microarray gene expression profiling (Human GeneChip 1.0 ST arrays) in triplicate at 0 hr, 8 hr, 9 days of erlotinib-treatment, and 9 days pretreatment with erlotinib followed by 7 days drug-washout. Data analysis was performed using PCA, heatmap, BAMarray and PathwayStudio 6.0 analysis. We also performed mass-spectrometry-based global profiling analysis of cellular metabolome in 5 replicate.

Results. We analyzed drug-sensitive HCC827 and PC-9 cells under erlotinib inhibition to characterize the adaptive response that engenders drug resistance. We identified an early adaptive drug-escape that emerged after 9 days of erlotinib, characterized with MET-independent mitochondrial BCL-2/BCL-xL prosurvival priming to result in 100-fold IC50 increase towards resistance. These cells displayed a quiescence state associated with retarded cell proliferation/cytoskeletal functions. Transcriptome profiling analysis of the early adaptive resistant HCC827 cells revealed a remarkable genome-wide adaptive reprogramming of gene expression signature, involving pathways of cell adhesion, cell cycle regulation, cell division/mitosis, glycolysis and gluconeogenesis, response to DNA damage stimulus, and DNA repair. Metabolomic profiling revealed a global adaptive metabolic reprogramming also, with resultant suppression of glucose and TCA cycle metabolism, and lipid bioenergetics. Our studies also identified autocrine TGFβ2 signaling pathway in mediating the early adaptive resistance in the mutated-EGFR lung cancer cells that escaped erlotinib inhibition through a combination of quiescence-state and EMT, cellular metabolic reprogramming and STAT3/BCL-2/BCL-xL mitochondrial prosurvival priming.

Conclusion. Early adaptive drug-escape emerges within a subpopulation of EGFR-mutant NSCLC under erlotinib inhibition. This constitutes an early-stage minimal residual disease leading to eventual resistant tumor relapse. These early drug-escaping tumor cells undergo global cellular reprogramming with upregulated mitochondrial prosurvival priming, representing attractive therapeutic targets to eradicate drug resistance.

Citation Format: Patrick C. Ma, Praveena S. Thiagarajan, Patrick Leahy, Rakesh Bagai, Ivy Shi, Wei Zhang, Yan Feng, Martina L. Veigl, Daniel Lindner, David Danielpour, Lihong Yin. Transcriptome and metabolome reprogramming in EGFR-mutant NSCLC early adaptive drug-escape against erlotinib. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 105th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2014 Apr 5-9; San Diego, CA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2014;74(19 Suppl):Abstract nr 1835. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2014-1835