Patent Application: US-92086006-A

Abstract:
given the important role of protein kinases in pathways affecting cellular growth and invasion , we have analyzed 340 serine / threonine kinases for genetic mutations in colorectal cancers . mutations in eight genes were identified , including three members of the phosphatidylinositol - 3 - kinase pathway ; the alterations in the latter genes each occurred in different tumors and did not overlap with mutations in pik3ca or other non - serine - threonine kinase members of the pi3k pathway , suggesting that mutations in any of these genes had equivalent tumorigenic effects . these data demonstrate that the pi3k pathway is a major target for mutational activation in colorectal cancers and provide new opportunities for therapeutic intervention .

Description:
the inventors have identified therapeutic targets for cancers , including without limitation , colorectal cancer , head and neck cancer , pancreatic cancer , lung cancer , breast cancer , prostate cancer , stomach cancer , and brain cancer . the targets are in two overlapping classes : ( a ) serine - threonine kinases , and ( b ) members of the pi3k pathway . interestingly , the alterations that have been detected in the serine - threonine kinase ( stk ) members of the pi3k pathway occur in different tumors which do not overlap with tumors containing mutations in pik3ca or other non - stk members of the pi3k pathway . this suggests that mutations in any of these genes have equivalent tumorigenic effects . the great majority of the mutations are activating mutations which increase the amount of phosphorylation activity of the kinases . these can be targeted by pharmacological inhibitors to reduce the amount of phosphorylation activity . specific inhibitors for specific kinases can be rationally designed or screened for . in order to screen for useful anti - cancer agents , such as anti - colorectal cancer agents , one can contact an activated protein kinase with a test substance . the activated protein kinase can be in a cell , such as a cancer cell , a recombinant host cell , or a cell of a cancer cell line , or it can be isolated from a cell . typically the activated protein kinase will be one that is found in cancer cells as the result of a somatic mutation . such activated protein kinases may be pdk1 , akt2 , pak4 , mark3 , mylk2 , cdc7 , or pd1k1l . specific activating mutations which may be employed are shown in fig3 and 5 . a test substance which inhibits the activated kinase is a potential anti - cancer agent , and it can be identified as such . it may have particular use as an anti - colorectal cancer agent . agents which are found to inhibit pdk1 , akt2 , and / or pak4 can be used in particular to treat cancers that have or which have been identified to have pi3kca mutations . because these protein kinases are downstream of pi3kca in the signaling pathway , inhibition of them , even if they are not mutated or activated , may result in reduced signaling from the pathway . because pi3kca is one of the most frequently mutated genes in cancers , inhibition of its signaling pathway should be widely effective . isolated , activated protein kinases according to the invention are in cell - free preparations . they can be isolated from cancer cells or from recombinant cells . they can be the result of synthetic or semi - synthetic reactions . they can be naturally occurring , activated protein kinases found in actual cancer cells . for purposes of the screening assays , the kinases can be in solution or attached to a solid support , such as a bead , well , column packing material , filter paper , agarose plate , array , etc . although specific wild - type sequences in databases are referred to in fig2 and 4 , these are of necessity individual sequences of individual humans . any human sequence can be used for these purposes . such other human sequences will typically differ very little from the database sequence , perhaps by as little as one , two , three , four , or five amino acid residues . often such allelic sequences will be conservative changes in which a residue of a certain charge or polarity is replaced with a residue of a similar charge or polarity . any sequences that are referred to in databases are those sequences as they existed on may 23 , 2005 . samples of cancer tissue from individuals can be tested for the presence of any of the activating mutations of the present invention or amplification of the amplified genes of the present invention . mutations can be determined by any technique known in the art that is dependent on the sequence of the gene or protein . direct sequencing of all or part of a gene can be used , for example . somatic mutations can be determined by comparing a gene or protein sequence in a cancer tissue to that found in a matched tissue of a non - cancer tissue of the same individual . in the absence of a matched tissue , tissues of non - tumor , control individuals can be used . exemplary mutations are non - synonymous point mutations , splice site alterations , insertions , and deletions . many techniques are known in the art and any can be used as is convenient . these may include without limitation , allele - specific hybridization , allele - specific amplification , primer extension , mutant - specific antibodies , etc . amplification can be determined by any technique that permits absolute or relative quantification of a gene sequence . typically amplification is determined if the sequence is present at least 2 - fold , at least 3 - fold , at least 5 - fold , or at least 10 - fold more than in the control . quantitative pcr , fluorescence in situ hybridization ( fish ), and digital karyotyping are techniques that can be used in this regard . activating or inactivating mutations can be determined by assaying for kinase ( phosphorylation ) activity . any of the multitude of assays known in the art can be used . these include those using radioactive or fluorescent substrates , as well as those in which the substrate is linked to a solid support , tag sequence , or second protein . typically these assays monitor the amount of phosphorylated protein product . althernatively , the can monitor the diminution of the amount of one or more substrates . the same assays can be used to test for inhibition of protein kinase activity by test substances . once an inhibitor is identified in a cell - free or in - cell assay , other assays and tests can be employed to confirm activity and to test for side - effects . other assays and tests may be in other formats , in other cell types , in whole animals , and in animal models of disease . if an activating mutation or amplification is detected , then the tissue sample and / or the individual from whom the tissue sample was taken can be assigned to a group or set . the group or set can be used for testing clinical agents for their effects . the group or set can be used to prescribe a treatment regime to the patient . the group or set can be correlated with prognostic information such as life expectancy data or recurrence data . the sets can be tested and / or correlated with drug efficacy data . the above disclosure generally describes the present invention . all references disclosed herein are expressly incorporated by reference . a more complete understanding can be obtained by reference to the following specific examples which are provided herein for purposes of illustration only , and are not intended to limit the scope of the invention . on the basis of a recent bioinformatics study that identified the protein kinase complement encoded by the human genome 5 , we selected 340 serine / threonine kinases for mutational analysis in colorectal cancers . these included 63 a / g / c protein kinases ; 74 calcium / calmodulin - dependent protein kinases ; 12 casein kinases ; 61 cmgc kinases ; 47 homologs of yeast sterile 7 / 11 / 20 kinases , and 83 other kinases ( fig2 ). as the catalytic domains of these genes are most likely to harbor mutations that activate the gene product 1 , we focused our efforts on the exons containing the kinase domains . these exons were amplified using polymerase chain reaction on template dna derived from 24 colorectal cancers and directly sequenced ( for methods , see example 4 ). any observed change was evaluated in dna from patient - matched normal tissue to identify somatic ( i . e ., tumor - specific ) mutations . the entire coding regions of those genes found to contain mutations were then further evaluated in a larger panel of 180 colorectal tumors . using this approach , a total of 23 changes , including 20 nonsynonymous point mutations , one insertion and one splice site alteration , were identified among the cancers analyzed ( fig3 ). the mutations affected eight different genes : six in mitogen - activated protein kinase kinase 4 ( mkk4 / jnkk1 ), six in myosin light chain kinase 2 ( mylk2 ), three in phosphoinositide dependent protein kinase - 1 ( pdk1 ) ( of which two mutations affected the same residue in the kinase domain ), two in p21 - activated kinase 4 ( pak4 ), two in v - akt murine thymoma viral oncogene homolog 2 kinase ( akt2 ), and two in map / microtubule affinity - regulating kinase 3 ( marks ). one alteration was observed in cell division cycle 7 kinase ( cdc7 ) and another in a hypothetical casein kinase ( pdik1l ). eighteen of the 23 somatic mutations occurred at evolutionarily conserved residues . identification of somatic mutations in serine / threonine kinase members of the pi3k signaling pathway alterations of mkk4 / jnkk1 have previously been reported in a variety of various tumor types 6 , but none of the other genes had been previously observed to be mutated in colorectal cancers . interestingly , three of the altered genes , pdk1 , akt2 , and pak4 , encoded proteins known to be involved in the phosphatidylinositol - 3 - kinase ( pi3k ) signaling pathway ( fig1 ) 7 , 8 , and two of these ( akt2 and pak4 ) have been shown to be overexpressed in human cancers 1 . on the basis of these data , we determined whether any of these kinases were altered by amplification , an alternate mechanism for apparent kinase activation . quantitative pcr analyses of 146 colorectal tumors showed co - amplification of akt2 and pak4 on chromosome 19q13 . 2 in two samples , and these were independently confirmed by digital karyotyping 9 and fluorescence in situ hybridization ( fish ) ( fig6 ). to complement these analyses , we evaluated other non - stk members of the pi3k pathway in the same 146 samples ( fig1 and 4 ) 7 . these assays revealed one mutation in the insulin related receptor insrr , one in the v - erb - b erythroblastic leukemia viral oncogene homolog erbb4 , seven in the phosphatase and tensin homolog pten , and three cases of amplification of the insulin receptor substrate irs2 ( fig5 ). when these alterations were compared to those previously observed in pik3ca 10 , it was found that they were distributed in a striking manner : all but two of the 58 alterations were in different tumors ( p = 0 . 02 , chi square test ). this paucity of overlapping mutations provides strong support for the hypothesis that the mutated genes have equivalent tumorigenic effects and are operating through the same biochemical pathway . overall , nearly 40 % of colorectal tumors had alterations in one of eight pi3k pathway genes . as most of these genes encode protein kinases , they serve as potential therapeutic targets in tumors containing mutant proteins . in addition , targeting of genes that act downstream in this pathway , such as akt2 or pdk1 , may be effective in targeting the much larger fraction of tumors containing mutations in pik3ca or pten . all stks that were members of the following groups identified by maiming et al . 1 were selected for mutational analysis : the a / g / c protein kinase group ( 63 genes ), the calcium / calmodulin - dependent protein kinase group ( 74 genes ), the casein kinase group ( 12 genes ), the cmgc kinase group ( 61 genes ), the sterile 7 / 11 / 20 kinase group ( 47 genes ), and 83 unclassified other protein kinases . tyrosine kinases and related genes , including members of the tk , tkl , and rgc groups , were not included for analysis as these have been previously examined in colorectal cancers 2 . pi3k pathway genes were identified on the basis of their reported involvement in the pi3k signaling pathway . all stk and pi3k pathway genes analyzed along with celera and genbank accession numbers are listed in fig2 and 3 . sequences for all annotated exons and adjacent intronic sequences containing the kinase domain of identified stks and pi3k pathway genes were extracted from the celera ( www . celera . com ) or public ( http :// genome . ucsc . edu /) draft human genome sequences . primers for pcr amplification and sequencing were designed using the primer 3 program which is available as an http document at server computer frodo . wi . mit . edu at a file named cgi - bin / primer3 / primer3_www . cgi , and were synthesized by mwg ( high point , n . c .) or idt ( coralville , iowa ). pcr amplification and sequencing were performed on tumor dna from early passage cell lines or primary tumors as previously described 2 using a 384 capillary automated sequencing apparatus ( spectrumedix , state college , pa .). sequence traces were assembled and analyzed to identify potential genomic alterations using the mutation surveyor software package ( softgenetics , state college , pa .). sequences of all primers used for pcr amplification and sequencing are available from the authors upon request . a digital karyotyping library of colorectal cancer co82 was constructed as previously described 3 . briefly , genomic dna was isolated using a dneasy kit ( qiagen , chatsworth , calif .). for each sample , 1 μg of genomic dna was sequentially digested with mapping enzyme saci ( new england biolabs , beverly , mass . ), ligated to 20 - 40 ng of biotinylated linkers ( integrated dna technologies , coralville , iowa ), and digested with the fragmenting enzyme nlaiii ( new england biolabs , beverly , mass .). dna fragments containing biotinylated linkers were isolated by binding to streptavidin - coated magnetic beads ( dynal , oslo , norway ). captured dna fragments were ligated to linkers containing mmei recognition sites , and tags were released with mmei ( new england biolabs , beverly , mass .). tags were self - ligated to form ditags which were then further ligated to form concatemers and cloned into pzero ( invitrogen , carlsbad , calif .). clones were sequenced using big dye terminators ( abi , foster city , calif .) and analyzed using a 384 capillary automated sequencing apparatus ( spectrumedix , state college , pa .) or with a 96 capillary abi 3700 instrument at agencourt biosciences ( beverly , mass .). digital karyotyping sequence files were trimmed using phred sequence analysis software ( codoncode , mass .) and 21 bp genomic tags were extracted using the sage2000 software package . tags were matched to the human genome ( ucsc human genome assembly , july 2003 freeze ) and tag densities were evaluated using the digital karyotyping software package . genomic densities were calculated as the ratio of experimental tags to the number of virtual tags present in a fixed window . sliding windows of sizes ranging from 100 to 300 virtual tags were used to identify regions of increased and decreased genomic density . digital karyotyping protocols and software for extraction and analysis of genomic tags are available as an http document , at server computer www . digitalkaryotyping . org . metaphase chromosomes were analyzed by fish as previously described 4 . bac clone ctc - 425o23 ( located at chr19 : 45 , 387 , 867 - 45 , 566 , 201 bp ) and rp11 - 21j15 ( located at chr19 : 49 , 726 , 611 - 49 , 900 , 195 ) were obtained from bacpac resources ( children &# 39 ; s hospital oakland , calif .) and used as probes for the akt2 gene and a reference region on chromosome 19 , respectively . ctc - 425o23 and rp11 - 21j15 were labeled by nick translation with biotin - dutp and digoxigenin - dutp , respectively . to detect biotin - labeled and digoxigenin - labeled signals , slides were first incubated with fitc - avidin ( vector , burlingame , calif .) and an anti - digoxigenin mouse antibody ( roche , indianapolis , ind .). the slides were subsequently incubated with a biotinylated anti - avidin antibody ( vector , burlingame , calif .) and tritc - conjugated rabbit anti - mouse antibody ( sigma , st . louis , mo . ), then finally incubated with fitc - avidin and tritc - conjugated goat anti - rabbit antibody ( sigma ). slides were counterstained with 4 ′, 6 ′- diamidino - 2 - phenylindole stain ( dapi ) ( sigma , burlingame , calif .). fish signals were evaluated with a nikon fluorescence microscope e800 . amplification of akt2 , pak4 , and irs2 genes was determined by quantitative real - time pcr using an icycler apparatus ( bio - rad , hercules , calif .) as previously described 3 , 4 . dna content was normalized to that of line - 1 , a repetitive element for which copy numbers per haploid genome are similar among all human cells . pcr primers with the following sequences were used to amplify akt2 , pak4 , and irs2 respectively : akt2 - f 5 ′- ggacagggaagagacccttttt - 3 ′ ( seq id no : 1 ), akt2 - r 5 ′- taacacgaggatgggatgtttg - 3 ( seq id no : 2 )′, pak4 - f 5 ′- taggccatttgtcctggagttt - 3 ′( seq id no : 3 ), pak4 - r 5 ′- cttctcaacccactcgcttttt - 3 ′( seq id no : 4 ), irs2 - f : 5 ′- caaggaagaccaaccatggag - 3 ′( seq id no : 5 ) and irs2 - r 5 ′- aggagcagagacacctgcaac - 3 ′( seq id no : 6 ). pcr reactions for each sample were performed in triplicate and threshold cycle numbers were calculated using icycler software v2 . 3 ( bio - 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