Abstract 1767: A synthetic lethal screen identifies determinants of gemcitabine sensitivity in pancreatic cancer.

Proceedings: AACR 104th Annual Meeting 2013; Apr 6-10, 2013; Washington, DC Purpose/Objectives: Pancreatic cancer is notorious for its devastating disease course and prognosis. Gemcitabine is a widely used regimen for pancreatic cancer treatment but lack of response and resistance often limits its effectiveness. Thus, a better understanding of which patients are likely to respond to gemcitabine treatment would allow the personalization of therapies that are most effective for a patient while potentially reducing toxicity. The objective of this study was to identify the genes and mechanisms involved in determining gemcitabine sensitivity in pancreatic cancer. Materials/Methods: We completed a loss of function genetic screen to identify genes, which when silenced cause sensitization of resistance to a low dose of gemcitabine in human pancreatic cancer cells. We optimized a high-throughput assay using ATR or CHK1 siRNA as positive controls and ATM or non-targeting (NT) siRNA as negative controls. Our siRNA library included 4,474 siRNAs corresponding to 1,006 unique human genes arrayed in a one-gene:one-well format in 96-well plates. Genes chosen for our library consisted predominantly of nuclear enzymes, which we reasoned were more likely to function directly in DNA repair processes and be targetable. Mia PaCa-2 cells were transfected with 25 nM siRNA and treated 48 hours later with or without 13 nM gemcitabine for 72 hours prior to assaying for cell proliferation using WST-1 reagent. Candidate genes were deconvoluted with individual siRNAs to eliminate off-target effects and validated by secondary screens for cell cycle recovery after a challenge of hydroxyurea (HU) and γH2AX phosphorylation in the absence of exogenous damage following gene silencing. A rigorous statistical algorithm was used to determine positive hits. Genes with variable expression in pancreatic cancer tissue samples were identified by mining through published data sets. Results: We identified 49 genes in which at least 2 unique siRNAs yielded gemcitabine sensitization and 17 genes in which at least 2 unique siRNAs yielded gemcitabine resistance. Positive hits included 25 known genome maintenance genes, including well characterized ATR signaling pathway genes CHK1, RAD9, HUS1, and CDC25A, 27 putative ATM/ATR substrates, and 26 genes identified in previously published DNA damage sensitivity screens. Eight of our genes are above the 90th percentile in variability of expression amongst a panel of pancreatic cancer tissue samples. Conclusion: We identified gemcitabine sensitization and resistance genes that are variably expressed in pancreatic cancer, which may function as novel targets or biomarkers for individualizing treatment for patients with pancreatic cancer. Citation Format: Matthew D. Warren, Claire W. Hardy, Brooke G. Pantazides, Khanjan Gandhi, Jerome C. Landry, Joseph W. Shelton, Shishir K. Maithel, Bassel El-Rayes, Jeanne Kowalski, David S. Yu. A synthetic lethal screen identifies determinants of gemcitabine sensitivity in pancreatic cancer. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 104th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2013 Apr 6-10; Washington, DC. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2013;73(8 Suppl):Abstract nr 1767. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2013-1767