Patent Application: US-201515129569-A

Abstract:
a tyrosine kinase inhibitor for use in a method for the treatment of cancer in a patient , wherein the method comprises subjecting the patient to reduced caloric intake , i . e a daily caloric intake reduced by 10 - 100 %, including starvation , for a period of 24 - 190 hours and administering the tyrosine kinase inhibitorto the patient during such period ; the tyrosine kinase inhibitor is preferably selected among lapatinib , crizotinib , gefitinib , erlotinib , afatinib and regorafenib .

Description:
the applicants performed several experiments to assess whether conditions that mimic the metabolic effects of starvation in vitro ( cell culture in the presence of low serum ( 1 % fbs ) and low glucose ( 0 . 5 g / l ) sensitize cancer cells to two tkis , crizotinib and lapatinib , that are commonly used in eml4 - alk + nsclc and in her2 + bc ( breast cancer cells ), respectively . with reference to fig1 a and 1b , 3 × 10 3 h3122 cells were plated in 96 well plates in regular dmem medium containing 10 % fbs . 24 h later , the cell medium was removed and cells were incubated for 24 h either in the same medium ( ctr ) or in low - glucose ( 0 . 5 g / l ) dmem medium containing 1 % fbs ( sts ). 24 h later cells were treated or not with the indicated concentrations of crizotinib or tae382 ( tae ). 72 h later , viability was measured with sulforodhamine b - based assays . with reference to fig1 c , 10 5 h3122 cells were plated in 60 mm petri dishes in regular dmem medium . 24 h later , the cell medium was removed and cells were incubated for 24 h either in regular medium ( ctr ) or in sts conditions . 24 h later 400 nm crizotinib was added ( or not ) to the cells . 5 days later , the cell medium was removed and the cells were cultured for two additional days in regular dmem medium . 48 h later , the plates were stained with sulforodhamine b and photographed . with reference to fig1 d , 3 × 10 3 a549 cells were plated in 96 well plates and treated with crizotinib in the presence or absence of sts , as in the experiments of fig1 a and 1b , before viability was measured in sulforodhamine b - based assays . with reference to fig1 e , 10 5 h3122 cells were plated in 6 well plates in regular dmem medium containing 10 % fbs . 24 h later , the cell medium was removed and cells were incubated for 24 h either in the same medium ( ctr ) or in low - glucose ( 0 . 5 g / l ) dmem containing 1 % fbs ( sts ). 24 h later cells were treated or not with 400 nm crizotinib . after 24 h , cell were used for cell lysate preparation and phospho - erk ( thr202 / tyr204 ), and total erk levels were detected by immunoblotting . having regard to the above experiments , it can be concluded that in h3122 nsclc cells ( which carry the eml4 - alk translocation ), sts conditions strongly potentiated the activity of crizotinib and of tae684 , an unrelated alk inhibitor ( fig1 a - c ), leading to a virtual complete killing of nsclc cells in the presence of 400 nm crizotinib ( fig1 c ). notably , a549 nsclc cells , which do not have an eml4 - alk translocation , were insensitive to crizotinib and sts did not increase the activity of the tki in this cell line ( fig1 d ). thus , sts did not simply increase the cytotoxic activity of crizotinib , but instead it allowed to retain its specificity for cancer cells with aberrant alk activity . notably when administered to starved cells , crizotinib was more effective at blocking signaling through the mapk pathway ( erk1 / 2 phosphorylation ) than it was in cells cultured in standard conditions ( fig1 e ), which suggests a plausible mechanism for the observed potentiation of crizotinib efficacy through sts . in line with this hypothesis is the observation that h3122 cells engineered to overexpress hras or hras v12 were resistant to crizotinib , sts - mimicking conditions or their combination ( not shown ), which is consistent with inhibition of the mapk pathway playing a key role in the anticancer activity of these treatments . with reference to fig2 a , six - to eight - week - old balb / c athymic mice ( nu +/ nu +) were injected s . c . with 5 × 10 6 h3122 cells . when tumors became palpable , mouse were randomly assigned to one of four arms ( six mice per treatment arm ): control — normal diet (-); crizotinib — normal diet with 3 cycles of crizotinib ( 25 mg / kg / day via oral gavage for 5 days a week , mon - fri ); sts [ fasting ( water only ) for 48 h ( sun - tue ) for three cycles at 1 - week intervals ]; sts + crizotinib . tumor size was measured daily and tumor volume was calculated using the formula : tumor volume =( w 2 × w )× π / 6 , where “ w ” and “ w ” are “ minor side ” and “ major side ” ( in mm ), respectively . at the end of treatment , mice were euthanized and tumor masses were excised and weighted ( see fig2 b ). mouse weight was also monitored daily . from the above reported experiments it can be observed that , in vivo , both fasting cycles and crizotinib effectively reduced the growth of h3122 xenografts with no difference in terms of efficacy between the two approaches , but the combination crizotinib + fasting was more active than either type of treatment alone (*: p & lt ; 0 . 05 ; **: p & lt ; 0 . 01 ; ***: p & lt ; 0 . 001 ; fig2 a - b ). fasted mice exhibited transient weight losses , but fully recovered their weight between one cycle and the next ( fig2 b ). clearly , this data indicates the potential of sts conditions to make alk inhibitors more effective with possible strong benefits for the patients . with reference to fig3 a and 3b , 3 × 10 3 skbr3 ( fig3 a ) or bt474 ( fig3 b ) cells / well were plated in 96 well plates in regular dmem medium containing 10 % fbs and 2 . 5 g / l glucose . 24 h later , the cell medium was removed and cells were incubated for 24 h either in the same medium ( ctr ) or in low - glucose ( 0 . 5 g / l ) dmem medium containing 1 % fbs ( sts ). 24 h later cells were treated or not with 100 nm lapatinib . 72 h later , viability was measured in sulforodhamine b - based assays . with reference to fig3 c , 4 × 10 5 bt474 cells were plated in 60 mm petri dishes in regular dmem medium . 24 h later , the cell medium was removed and cells were incubated for 24 h either in regular medium ( ctr ) or in sts conditions . 24 h later 100 nm lapatinib was added ( or not ) to the cells . 5 days later , the cell medium was removed and the cells were cultured for additional two days in regular dmem medium . 48 h later , the plates were stained with sulforodhamine b and photographed . with reference to fig3 d and 3e , bt474 or mcf7 cells were plated as detailed with regard to fig3 a and 3b , treated with 100 nm cp724714 ( fig3 d ) or lapatinib ( fig3 e ) with or without sts conditions as detailed with respect to fig3 a and 3b before viability was detected . with reference to fig4 a - c , 10 5 skbr3 ( fig4 a ) or bt474 ( fig4 b ) cells were plated in 6 well plates in regular dmem medium containing 10 % fbs . 24 h later , the cell medium was removed and cells were incubated for 24 h either in the same medium ( ctr ) or in low - glucose ( 0 . 5 g / l ) dmem medium containing 1 % fbs ( sts ). 24 h later cells were treated or not with 100 nm lapatinib . after 24 h , cell were either used for cell lysate preparation or for flow cytometry assays . cell lysates were used for phospho - akt ( ser473 ), total akt , phospho - erk ( thr202 / tyr204 ), and total erk level detection by immunoblotting ( fig4 a and 4b ). flow cytometry ( with a facs calibur , bd ) was used to estimate cell size ( fsc ) by acquiring 10 . 000 events per cell sample ( fig4 c ). from the experiments of fig3 a - e , it can be noted that , in the case of lapatinib , as shown in fig3 a and 3b , both bt474 and skbr3 ( her2 + bc cell lines ) cells were strongly sensitized to therapeutic concentrations of this agent by sts conditions ( see also fig3 c ). similar results were obtained using an unrelated her2 tk inhibitor , cp724714 ( 13 ) ( fig3 d ), thus confirming that the observed cooperation between sts and lapatinib was due to inhibition of her2 tk activity . as expected ( 12 , 14 ), mcf7 cells ( fig3 e ), which do not harbor her2 amplification , were insensitive to lapatinib and sts failed to enhance the activity of this tki in this cell line , again indicating that sts - mimicking conditions potentiate the tki activity without compromising its specificity . at the molecular level , cells treated with lapatinib in sts - mimicking conditions exhibited a more pronounced inhibition of akt and erk1 / 2 signaling than cells treated with lapatinib alone . given the importance of these signaling cascades in the survival of her2 + bc ( 15 ), these findings could well justify the observed cooperation between the two types of interventions ( fig4 a , b ). 1 . gridelli c , de marinis f , cappuzzo f , di maio m , hirsch fr , mok t , et al . treatment of advanced non - small - cell lung cancer with epidermal growth factor receptor ( egfr ) mutation or alk gene rearrangement : results of an international expert panel meeting of the italian association of thoracic oncology . clinical lung cancer . 2013 . 2 . gridelli c , solange p , sgambato a , casaluce f , adjei a a , ciardiello f . alk inhibitors in the treatment of advanced nsclc . cancer treat rev . 2013 . 3 . geyer c e , forster j , lindquist d , chan s , romieu c g , pienkowski t , et al . lapatinib plus capecitabine for her2 - 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