Abstract 6276: Brain penetrant MDM2 inhibitor RG7388 extends survival benefit of radiation treatment in select glioblastoma patient-derived xenograft models
Authors: Gupta Shiv K. , Mladek Ann C. , Telele Surabhi , Mohammad Afroz S. , He Lihong , Hu Zeng , Bakken Katrina K. , Burgenske Danielle M. , Carlson Brett L. , Elmquist William F. , Sarkaria Jann N. 
Published: September 2020

Despite aggressive treatment that involves surgery, radiation and temozolomide therapy, a significant morbidity from glioblastoma (GBM) recurrence highlights the pressing unmet medical need to develop effective novel therapies for GBM. Murine Double Minute 2 (MDM2) is an important regulator of the p53 tumor suppressor, which promotes cell cycle arrest and apoptosis in response to DNA damage. Here we have assessed the efficacy of RG7388, a purported brain penetrant MDM2-inhibitor, alone or combined with radiation therapy (RT) in patient-derived xenograft (PDX) models of GBM. In vitro, RG7388 suppressed viability of GBM PDX short-term stem cell cultures of p53 wildtype lines with MDM2-amplification (GBM46 and 108, IC50 25 and 11 nM, respectively) or without MDM2-amplification (GBM10 and 14, IC50 43.5 and 9.1 nM, respectively). Serum proteins appear to reduce efficacy of RG7388, which is supported by the notion that adding 2.5% bovine serum albumin to a serum free stem cell cultures increased the IC50 by 3 to 5 fold. At the molecular level, both RG7388 and RT could induce p53 signaling in GBM10, but a more robust induction was observed with the combination. In athymic nude mice, RG7388 readily distributes into normal brain as measured by LCMS-MS at 1 hour after five daily oral doses (70 mg/kg) the average RG7388 concentrations in brain and plasma were 2167 ng/g and 4423 ng/ml, respectively. In an initial efficacy study using flank tumors established from GBM10, one week of dosing at 70 mg/kg/day RG7388 alone was ineffective, while combining RG7388 with focal radiation (4 daily doses of 5 Gy each) had a moderate 15 day delay in tumor progression. However, in an MDM2-amplified GBM108 line with a relatively intact blood-brain barrier, one week of daily RG7388 dosing, either alone or in combination with RT was remarkably effective (median survival 71 days with RG7388 alone vs. 29 days with vehicle, p&lt;0.0001; and 262 days for RG7388/RT vs. 74 days with RT, p=0.017). Taken together, RG7388 alone or in combination with RT is highly effective in an MDM2-amplified pre-clinical model of GBM. Determining impact of serum protein binding on drug pharmacokinetics and further evaluation of pharmacodynamic effects and orthotopic therapy in additional p53 wildtype PDX lines will help to increase our understanding if RG7388/RT therapy can be used in a larger population of GBM tumors.

Citation Format: Shiv K. Gupta, Ann C. Mladek, Surabhi Telele, Afroz S. Mohammad, Lihong He, Zeng Hu, Katrina K. Bakken, Danielle M. Burgenske, Brett L. Carlson, William F. Elmquist, Jann N. Sarkaria. Brain penetrant MDM2 inhibitor RG7388 extends survival benefit of radiation treatment in select glioblastoma patient-derived xenograft models [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research 2020; 2020 Apr 27-28 and Jun 22-24. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2020;80(16 Suppl):Abstract nr 6276.