Abstract LB317: TNBC cell co-culture with primary human lung fibroblasts identifies a paracrine-juxtacrine signaling loop promoting fibroblast activation and autophagy-dependent breast cancer cell therapy resistance
Authors: Klosowski Marika L. , Cronise Kathryn , Stratton Claire , Zhou Qiong , Esquer Hector , LaBarbera Daniel , Regan Daniel 
Published: April 2024

Triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) carries a poorer prognosis than other breast cancer subtypes due to high metastatic incidence, lack of molecular drug targets, and rapid development of chemoresistance. Cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAFs) are key extrinsic drivers of chemoresistance in primary TNBC tumors, but it is unknown whether resident fibroblasts in distant metastatic tissues also influence TNBC drug sensitivity. Since the lung is a top metastatic site in TNBC, we developed a breast cancer cell (BCC) - primary human donor-derived lung fibroblast (LF) co-culture model to identify therapeutic vulnerabilities and mechanisms of fibroblast-mediated extrinsic chemoresistance in lung-metastatic TNBC. We characterized the growth and chemoresistance phenotypes of BCC co-cultured with primary LFs via bioluminescence and fluorescence imaging and evaluated their transcriptional and secretory profiles using bulk and scRNAseq and multiplex cytokine analysis. Co-culture of human BCC and primary LFs resulted in BCC molecular subtype-dependent changes in cell growth and drug resistance compared with conventional monoculture. Moreover, we also observed increased LF secretion of the immunomodulatory cytokines IL-6 and CCL2 in response to both BCC co-culture and BCC-conditioned media. Transcriptomic analysis of LFs sorted from co-culture identified upregulation of pro-inflammatory and pro-fibrotic iCAF and myCAF-like gene signatures, while co-cultured TNBC cells upregulated interferon response-mediated multi-therapy resistance genes and cellular dormancy signatures. We applied this model in a high throughput screen of 846 kinase inhibitor compounds, which identified reproducible differential BCC responses to kinase inhibitors between monoculture and co-culture conditions. When co-cultured with LFs, BCC were broadly more resistant to kinase inhibitor compounds but showed increased sensitivity to inhibitors of the lipid kinase VPS34, an important initiator of autophagy. We subsequently established that autophagy is increased in co-cultured TNBC cells and contributes to LF-mediated resistance to kinase inhibitors. Moreover, we determined that while paracrine signals from BCC can promote LF activation indicated by enhanced cytokine secretion, cell-cell contact is required for LF modulation of TNBC therapy responses in co-culture. Thus, we conclude that breast cancer cell co-culture with primary lung fibroblasts is a scalable in vitro model that can facilitate therapeutic discovery and mechanistic evaluation of extrinsic modulation of therapy responses in metastatic breast cancer, and further demonstrate that BCC can promote paracrine activation of co-cultured LFs in association with juxtacrine induction of BCC autophagy and extrinsic therapy resistance.

Citation Format: Marika L. Klosowski, Kathryn Cronise, Claire Stratton, Qiong Zhou, Hector Esquer, Daniel LaBarbera, Daniel Regan. TNBC cell co-culture with primary human lung fibroblasts identifies a paracrine-juxtacrine signaling loop promoting fibroblast activation and autophagy-dependent breast cancer cell therapy resistance [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2024; Part 2 (Late-Breaking, Clinical Trial, and Invited Abstracts); 2024 Apr 5-10; San Diego, CA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2024;84(7_Suppl):Abstract nr LB317.