Abstract 1297: CDK4/CDK6 inhibition in childhood B-acute lymphoblastic leukemia: a new strategy to mediate glucocorticoid sensitivity
Authors: Bortolozzi Roberta , Mattiuzzo Elena , Mariotto Elena , Accordi Benedetta , Trentin Luca , Basso Giuseppe , Viola Giampietro 
Published: July 2016

Unrestrained cell proliferation and cell cycle deregulation are common features in almost all human cancers. Among the CDKs that tightly control cell cycle progression, cyclin D-dependent kinases, CDK4 and CDK6 are considered important oncogenic drivers in many cancers. Although many reports successfully described CDK4/CDK6 inhibitors against a broad range of carcinomas, few studies have been performed on leukemia.

Deletion and methylation of CDK4/CDK6 inhibitor CDKN2A, are frequently observed in B-acute lymphoblastic leukemia (B-ALL) and gene expression analysis performed in a cohort of childhood patients showed that cyclin D1, CDK4 and CDK6 are highly expressed. Moreover, Reverse Phase Protein Arrays (RPPA) analysis showed that cyclin D1 expression is higher in High Risk-MRD patients. These results suggest specific inhibition of cyclin D/CDK4/CDK6 axis as an attractive strategy to improve the effects of standard chemotherapy on B-ALL patients.

The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of dual inhibition of CDK4/CDK6 in B-ALL. To this purpose we treated two B-ALL dexamethasone resistant cell lines, SEM and RCH-ACV, and two B-ALL dexamethasone sensitive cell lines, RS4;11 and NALM6, with ribociclib, a highly specific CDK4/6 inhibitor.

As expected, treatment with ribociclib induced a strong cell cycle arrest in G1 phase in a time-dose dependent manner along with a dose-dependent decrease in phosphorylated Rb and increase of the expression of cell cycle inhibitors p21 and p27. Moreover, a strong dose-dependent reduction of clonogenic potential was observed in SEM cell line, by CFU assay. No significant reduction in cell viability was observed.

However, ribociclib exposure strongly synergized (CI&lt;1) with dexamethasone in SEM and RCH-ACV resistant cell lines with a strong decrease of proliferation and a significant increase of apoptotic cell death. Immunoblot analysis showed a decrease in phosphorylated Rb, the activation of caspase-9 and the cleavage of the effector caspase-3 starting from 48 h of co-treatment, in agreement with the appearance of annexin-V positive cells.

The synergistic effect of ribociclib-dexamethasone combination was confirmed on primary cultures derived from pediatric patients affected by B-ALL.

We are actually investigating on the mechanism of this synergistic activity, and the effect of CDK4, CDK6 and cyclin D1 silencing will be presented. Preliminary experiments show a modest increase in glucocorticoid receptor expression after ribociclib treatment or CDK6 silencing in RCH-ACV cells.

Our findings support the concept that pharmacologic inhibition of CDK4/CDK6 may represent a useful therapeutic strategy to control cell proliferation in B-ALL and provide new insight in understanding potential mechanisms of glucocorticoid resistance.

Citation Format: Roberta Bortolozzi, Elena Mattiuzzo, Elena Mariotto, Benedetta Accordi, Luca Trentin, Giuseppe Basso, Giampietro Viola. CDK4/CDK6 inhibition in childhood B-acute lymphoblastic leukemia: a new strategy to mediate glucocorticoid sensitivity. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 107th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2016 Apr 16-20; New Orleans, LA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2016;76(14 Suppl):Abstract nr 1297.