Dataset Information

Low endothelial cell FAK expression reduces pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma liver metastasis after gemcitabine treatment

ABSTRACT: Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is one of the most aggressive cancers with a high level of liver metastasis. Despite substantial advances, resistance to therapy, including gemcitabine, is still a major obstacle to improved progression free survival. Recent studies have indicated that endothelial cell (EC) focal adhesion kinase (FAK) regulates DNA-damaging therapy induced angiocrine factors and chemosensitivity in malignant cells. However, the effect of EC-FAK regulated angiocrine signalling in chemosensitivity of metastatic PDAC remains unexplored. Here, we show that inducible loss of EC-FAK in both orthotopic and spontaneous mouse models of PDAC reduces liver metastasis and improves survival rates in gemcitabine treated, but not untreated, mice, without affecting primary tumour growth, tumour vascularization, blood vessel leakage or early metastatic events. Phosphoproteomics analysis show a downregulation of the MAPK/ RAF/ PAK signalling pathways in gemcitabine treated FAK-depleted ECs compared to gemcitabine treated WT ECs. Moreover, low levels of EC-FAK correlate with increased survival and reduced relapse in gemcitabine treated human PDAC patients, supporting the clinical relevance of our findings. Altogether, we have identified a new role of EC-FAK regulating PDAC liver metastasis upon gemcitabine treatment that impacts on survival.

INSTRUMENT(S): Q Exactive Plus

ORGANISM(S): Mus Musculus (mouse)

TISSUE(S): Lung, Lung Endothelial Cell

DISEASE(S): Lung Occult Adenocarcinoma

SUBMITTER: Vinothini Rajeeve

LAB HEAD: Pedro R Cutillas

PROVIDER: PXD021542 | Pride | 2023-03-10

REPOSITORIES: Pride

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Publications

Suppression of Endothelial Cell FAK Expression Reduces Pancreatic Ductal Adenocarcinoma Metastasis after Gemcitabine Treatment.

Roy-Luzarraga Marina M Reynolds Louise E LE de Luxán-Delgado Beatriz B Maiques Oscar O Wisniewski Laura L Newport Emma E Rajeeve Vinothini V Drake Rebecca J G RJG Gómez-Escudero Jesús J Richards Frances M FM Weller Céline C Dormann Christof C Meng Ya-Ming YM Vermeulen Peter B PB Saur Dieter D Sanz-Moreno Victoria V Wong Ping-Pui PP Géraud Cyrill C Cutillas Pedro R PR Hodivala-Dilke Kairbaan K

Cancer research 20220501 10

Despite substantial advances in the treatment of solid cancers, resistance to therapy remains a major obstacle to prolonged progression-free survival. Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is one of the most aggressive cancers, with a high level of liver metastasis. Primary PDAC is highly hypoxic, and metastases are resistant to first-line treatment, including gemcitabine. Recent studies have indicated that endothelial cell (EC) focal adhesion kinase (FAK) regulates DNA-damaging therapy-induce ...[more]

PMID: 35350066

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Project description:Immunotherapeutics represent highly promising agents with the potential to improve patient outcomes in a variety of cancer types. Unfortunately, single-agent immunotherapy has achieved limited clinical benefit to date in patients suffering from pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC). This may be due to the presence of a uniquely immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment (TME) present in PDACs, which creates a barrier to effective immune surveillance. Critical obstacles to immunotherapy in PDAC tumors include the dense desmoplastic stroma that acts as a barrier to T-cell infiltration and the high numbers of tumor-associated immunosuppressive cells. We have identified hyperactivated focal adhesion kinase (FAK) activity in neoplastic PDAC cells as a significant regulator of the fibrotic and immunosuppressive TME. We found that FAK activity was elevated in human PDAC tissues and correlates with high levels of fibrosis and poor CD8+ cytotoxic T-cell infiltration. Single-agent FAK inhibition (VS-4718) dramatically limited tumor progression, resulting in a doubling of survival in the p48-Cre/LSL-KrasG12D/p53Flox/+ (KPC) mouse model of human PDAC. This alteration in tumor progression was associated with dramatically reduced tumor fibrosis, decreased numbers of tumor-infiltrating immature myeloid cells and immunosuppressive macrophages. We postulated that these desirable effects of FAK inhibition on the TME might render PDAC tumors more sensitive to immunotherapy. Accordingly, we found that VS-4718 rendered the previously unresponsive KPC mouse model responsive to anti-PD1 and anti-CTLA4 antagonists leading to a nearly tripling of survival times. These data suggest that FAK inhibition increases immune surveillance by overcoming the fibrotic and immunosuppressive PDAC TME thus rendering tumors more responsive to immunotherapy. We treated KP orthotopic tumor-bearing mice with vehicle and FAK inhibitor (FAKi) for 14 days, then extracted total RNA from tumor tissues.

Project description:Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) remains a major unsolved health problem. Most drugs that pass preclinical tests fail in these patients, emphasizing the need of appropriate preclinical models to test novel anticancer strategies. We developed four orthotopic mouse models employing primary human PDAC cells expressing Firefly and Gaussia luciferases, enabling bioluminescence monitoring of tumor growth and metastasis formation. Additional tumor characterization was performed using MR and high frequency ultrasound imaging. Genomic and immunohistochemical analysis revealed c-Met amplification and overexpression in one of four models. Analysis of c-Met inhibitors in vitro showed that crizotinib had the most potent effect. Moreover, we demonstrated synergistic effects between crizotinib and gemcitabine M-bM-^@M-^S the standard of care therapeutic in PDAC patients - in vitro and in vivo. Importantly, crizotinib reduced the cytidine deaminase activity in PDAC cells causing prolonged activity of gemcitabine due to diminished metabolic inactivation, as measured by LC-MS/MS. This might at least in part explain the observed prolonged survival of concomitantly treated mice with PDAC tumors and metastases. In conclusion, our orthotopic PDAC models enabled PDAC tumor imaging, and showed genetic, histopathological and metastatic features similar to their originator tumors. This allowed the identification of c-Met as a potential therapeutic target in PDAC, and revealed a cytidine deaminase-mediated synergistic mechanism between crizotinib and gemcitabine, a combination of drugs that warrants further investigation for the potential treatment of PDAC patients. 12 test samples in total [4 PDAC models (PDAC-1, PDAC-2, PDAC-3, PDAC-4; in three panel: primary human PDAC, primary tumor culture and mouse sample)] and reference sample (healthy control (mix/pool of healthy volunteers DNA) were analyzed as following (8 hybridizations); PDAC-1 primary human-Cy3 vs PDAC-4 cultured cells -Cy5 PDAC-1 cultured cells-Cy3 vs PDAC-4 mouse-Cy5 PDAC-1 mouse-Cy3 vs reference-Cy5 PDAC-2 primary human-Cy3 vs reference-Cy5 PDAC-2_cultured cells-Cy3 vs PDAC-2 mouse-Cy5 PDAC-3_primary human-Cy3 vs reference-Cy5 PDAC-3_cultured cells-Cy3 vs PDAC-3 mouse-Cy5 PDAC-4 primary human-Cy5 vs reference-Cy3 Normalized log2 ratio of (sample/references) data were calculated for 12 samples [*txt files on Series records]. Description of experimental/analysis design in r-program to generate 12 samples from 8 raw data files is provided in README.txt [Series supplementary file]

Dataset Information

Low endothelial cell FAK expression reduces pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma liver metastasis after gemcitabine treatment

Publications

Suppression of Endothelial Cell FAK Expression Reduces Pancreatic Ductal Adenocarcinoma Metastasis after Gemcitabine Treatment.

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