Abstract 799: The novel histone deacetylase inhibitor pracinostat is an effective anti-lymphoma agent
Authors: Mensah Afua A. , Spriano Filippo , Gaudio Eugenio , Tarantelli Chiara , Cascione Luciano , Aresu Luca , Lovati Emanuela , Zucca Emanuele , Stathis Anastasios , Pietra Claudio , Bertoni Francesco 
Published: August 2018

Background. Currently, 3 histone deacetylase inhibitors (HDACi) are clinically approved for the treatment of T-cell lymphomas: vorinostat, romidepsin and belinostat. Pracinostat (SB939) is a class I, II and IV HDACi (Novotny-Diermayr et al, Mol Cancer Ther 2010), in phase 3 in combination with azacitidine for acute myeloid leukemia patients who are unfit to receive intensive remission induction chemotherapy (NCT03151408). Here, we tested it on a large panel of lymphoma cell lines alone or in combination with a BCL2 inhibitor, venetoclax and with 5-azacitidine.

Methods. 60 cell lines derived from T-cell lymphoma (10), diffuse large B cell lymphoma (DLBCL, 25), mantle cell lymphoma (10), marginal zone lymphoma (5), Hodgkin lymphoma (4), chronic lymphocytic leukemia (2), primary mediastinal B-cell lymphoma (1), murine (2) and canine (1) lymphomas were exposed to increasing doses of pracinostat and vorinostat alone or to pracinostat in combination with venetoclax or 5-azacitidine for 72h. Cell proliferation was assessed using the MTT assay. Chou-Talalay index was used to determine synergism. For apoptosis and cell cycle analyses, cells were treated with 250 nM pracinostat for 72h then stained with Annexin V and 7-AAD (apoptosis) or fixed then stained with 7-AAD (cell cycle) before flow cytometry.

Results. All lymphoma subtypes responded well to pracinostat (median IC50 250 nM; 95%C.I., 171-324 nM). Pracinostat compared favorably with vorinostat (306 nM; 95%C.I., 241-363 nM), and the anti-proliferative activity of the two compounds was correlated (R=0.8, P&lt;0.0001).

Comparison of consensus cluster classification DLBCL subgroups showed that BCR DLBCL were more sensitive to HDACi than OxPhos DLBCL (pracinostat median IC50 BCR: 171 nM, OxPhos: 865 nM, P 0.001; vorinostat median IC50 BCR: 246 nM, OxPhos: 829 nM, P 0.01. No differences were observed between the DLBCL subtypes based on the cell of origin.

Pracinostat mostly provoked cell cycle arrest in the S and G2/M phases with S-phase arrest associated with OxPhos and G2/M arrest with BCR DLBCL. Pracinostat caused pronounced apoptosis in 2/8 DLBCL cell lines.

Functional annotation analysis to compare DLBCL with IC50 values &lt; 200 nM (n=12) and DLBCL with IC50 &gt; 400 nM (n=7) revealed an enrichment of mitochondrial metabolic pathways, DNA repair and cell cycle regulation in DLBCL with IC50 &gt;400 nM. Combination with venetoclax was beneficial in 3/3 cell lines, while the addition of 5-azacitidine benefited 2 out of 3 cell lines.

Conclusions. Pracinostat robustly inhibits the proliferation of lymphoma cells with a similar IC50 range to vorinostat. Its anti-proliferative activity can be cytotoxic or cytostatic. Combination of pracinostat with other compounds further inhibits lymphoma cell proliferation. In DLBCL, the OxPhos phenotype and an enrichment of mitochondrial metabolism, DNA repair and cell cycle pathways are associated with a poorer response to pracinostat.

Citation Format: Afua A. Mensah, Filippo Spriano, Eugenio Gaudio, Chiara Tarantelli, Luciano Cascione, Luca Aresu, Emanuela Lovati, Emanuele Zucca, Anastasios Stathis, Claudio Pietra, Francesco Bertoni. The novel histone deacetylase inhibitor pracinostat is an effective anti-lymphoma agent [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2018; 2018 Apr 14-18; Chicago, IL. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2018;78(13 Suppl):Abstract nr 799.