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The SWI/SNF multisubunit complex modulates chromatin structure through the activity of two mutually exclusive catalytic subunits, SMARCA2 and SMARCA4, which both contain a bromodomain and an ATPase domain. Using RNAi, cancer-specific vulnerabilities have been identified in SWI/SNF-mutant tumors, including SMARCA4-deficient lung cancer; however, the contribution of conserved, druggable protein domains to this anticancer phenotype is unknown. Here, we functionally deconstruct the SMARCA2/4 paralog dependence of cancer cells using bioinformatics, genetic, and pharmacologic tools. We evaluate a selective SMARCA2/4 bromodomain inhibitor (PFI-3) and characterize its activity in chromatin-binding and cell-functional assays focusing on cells with altered SWI/SNF complex (e.g., lung, synovial sarcoma, leukemia, and rhabdoid tumors). We demonstrate that PFI-3 is a potent, cell-permeable probe capable of displacing ectopically expressed, GFP-tagged SMARCA2-bromodomain from chromatin, yet contrary to target knockdown, the inhibitor fails to display an antiproliferative phenotype. Mechanistically, the lack of pharmacologic efficacy is reconciled by the failure of bromodomain inhibition to displace endogenous, full-length SMARCA2 from chromatin as determined by in situ cell extraction, chromatin immunoprecipitation, and target gene expression studies. Furthermore, using inducible RNAi and cDNA complementation (bromodomain- and ATPase-dead constructs), we unequivocally identify the ATPase domain, and not the bromodomain of SMARCA2, as the relevant therapeutic target with the catalytic activity suppressing defined transcriptional programs. Taken together, our complementary genetic and pharmacologic studies exemplify a general strategy for multidomain protein drug-target validation and in case of SMARCA2/4 highlight the potential for drugging the more challenging helicase/ATPase domain to deliver on the promise of synthetic-lethality therapy. Cancer Res; 75(18); 3865–78. ©2015 AACR.

T cell-mediated immunotherapies are promising cancer treatments. However, most patients still fail to respond to these therapies. The molecular determinants of immune resistance are poorly understood. Here, we interrogated the role of loss of expression of the tumor suppressor, PTEN, in immune resistance. In preclinical studies, we found that silencing PTEN in tumor cells inhibited T cell-mediated tumor killing and decreased T cell trafficking into tumors. In clinical studies, we observed that tumors with loss of PTEN had significantly less CD8+ T cell infiltration than PTEN-present tumors. In addition, 26% of melanomas that did not yield successful TIL growth demonstrated PTEN loss, which was more frequent than was observed in tumors that yielded successful TIL growth (11%). We further validated the association between reduced number and impaired function of TIL with PTEN loss using another independent cohort, TCGA dataset for SKCM. More importantly, we analyzed clinical outcomes of metastatic melanoma patients treated with the FDA-approved anti-PD-1 antibodies. Our analysis demonstrates that a greater reduction in tumor burden was achieved by PD-1 blockade in PTEN present patients, when compared with PTEN absent patients. To decipher the factors mediating the immunosuppressive effects of PTEN loss, we determined the expression profiles of tumor cells with or without PTEN expression. Our results indicated that PTEN loss increased the production of immunosuppressive factors, including CCL2 and VEGF. Anti-VEGF blocking antibody improved anti-tumor activity of transferred tumor-reactive T cells and enhanced tumor infiltration of transferred T cells in PTEN-silenced tumors. These results suggest that loss of PTEN can facilitate the resistance of T cell-mediated immune responses by increasing the expression of immunosuppressive factors. Given that PTEN loss results in activation of the PI3K pathway, we evaluated the efficacy of immunotherapy in combination with a selective PI3Kβinhibitor to treat spontaneously developed BRAF mutant, PTEN null melanomas in genetically engineered mouse models. Our result showed that the combination of PI3Kβ inhibitor and anti-PD-1 significantly delayed tumor growth in tumor-bearing mice. Mice treated with this combination had a median survival time of 28 days, which is longer than the survival time of mice treated with either therapy. Increased numbers of T cells at tumor sites were found in mice receiving the combination therapy compared with mice receiving either agent alone. Taken together, our results demonstrate that PTEN loss contributes to the generation of immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment. Notably, this study provides the first direct clinical evidence to support the association between PTEN loss and poor clinical outcome in immunotherapy treated patients. In addition, our study indicates that inhibition of the PI3K-AKT pathway can improve the efficacy of immunotherapy in cancer. Citation Format: Weiyi Peng, Jie Qing Chen, Chengwen Liu, Shruti Malu, Caitlin Creasy, Michael Tetzlaff, Chunyu Xu, Jodi McKenzie, Chunlei Zhang, Xiaoxuan Liang, Leila Williams, Wanleng Deng, Guo Chen, Rina Mbofung, Alexander Lazar, Carlos Torres-Cabala, Zachary Cooper, Pei-Ling Chen, Trang Tieu, Stefani Spranger, Xiaoxing Yu, Chantale Bernatchez, Marie-Andree Forget, Cara Haymaker, Rodabe Amaria, Jennifer McQuade, Isabella Glitza, Tina Cascone, Haiyan Li, Lawrence Kwong, Timothy Heffernan, Jianhua Hu, Roland Bassett, Marcus Bosenberg, Scott Woodman, Willem Overwijk, Gregory Lizée, Jason Roszik, Thomas Gajewski, Jennifer Wargo, Jeffrey Gershenwald, Laszlo Radvanyi, Michael Davies, Patrick Hwu. Loss of PTEN promotes resistance to T cell-mediated immunotherapy. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 107th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2016 Apr 16-20; New Orleans, LA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2016;76(14 Suppl):Abstract nr 4363.

Melanoma is a highly aggressive form of skin cancer, whose rates of morbidity and mortality are increasing. The development of immunotherapies like anti-PDL1 and anti-CTLA4 antibodies has resulted in fundamental advances in the treatment of some cancers. However, long lasting responses are only observed in a subset of immunotherapy-treated patients. This shortfall highlights the need for a better understanding of the molecular mechanisms that govern tumor response to immunotherapy. To address this need, autologous patient-derived tumor cell lines and tumor infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) were utilized in an in vitro high throughput screen, to identify compounds that increase the sensitivity of melanoma cells to T cell mediated cytotoxicity. The screen consisted of an 850 compound library. One group of compounds that was most able to enhance T cell killing of melanoma cells was topoisomerase I (Top1) inhibitors such as topotecan and irinotecan. Our results indicate that treatment of melanoma cells with a Top1 inhibitor prior to exposure to autologous T cells produced a synergistic increase in tumor cell death, as measured by intracellular staining of activated caspase 3. We have also recapitulated this finding in an in vivo model, where a better anti-tumor effect was observed in tumor bearing mice treated with an antibody against the co-inhibitory molecule PDL1 in combination with MM398 (nanoliposomal irinotecan), than in cohorts treated with either α-PDL1 or Top1 inhibitor alone. These findings suggest synergism between Top1 inhibitors and immune-based therapies in the treatment of melanoma. Molecular changes elicited by inhibition of Top1 are now being investigated to identify the factors that mediate the effect of Top1 inhibitors on T cell-mediated killing of melanoma. We have identified a p53-driven gene signature in Top1 inhibitor-treated melanoma cell lines and are investigating the functional relevance of Tumor Protein p53 Inducible Nuclear Protein 1 (TP53INP1) in mediating increased T cell killing of Top1 inhibitor-treated melanoma cells. Our results indicate that TP53INP1 is a critical component of this apoptotic response, as overexpression of TP53INP1 in melanoma cells increased their susceptibility to T cell mediated cytotoxicity. Complementary to this observation, we have also found that knockdown of TP53INP1 by shRNA, impedes the sensitivity of Top1 inhibitor-treated melanoma cells to T cell mediated killing. Understanding how Top1 inhibitors enhance melanoma killing by immunotherapy will allow for the development of predictive biomarkers, and also augment immune-based therapeutic strategies to ensure durable responses in a larger population of melanoma patients. By using melanoma as a model disease system, we can gain valuable insights into the dynamics of cancer immune response that may be applied to other cancers where effective treatment strategies are also lacking. Citation Format: Jodi A. McKenzie, Rina M. Mbofung, Shruti Malu, Rodabe N. Amaria, Richard E. Davis, Li Zhang, Trang N. Tieu, Tim P. Heffernan, Patrick Hwu. Enhancing the antitumor efficacy of immunotherapy by using the topoisomerase I inhibitor MM398. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 107th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2016 Apr 16-20; New Orleans, LA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2016;76(14 Suppl):Abstract nr 4002.

Recently, T cell based immunotherapies have moved to the forefront of cancer immunotherapy with the success of Adoptive T cell therapy (ACT) and Immune checkpoint blockade. ACT, where patients are treated with tumor infiltrating T cells (TILs), conferred a clinical response rate of ∼50%. Treatment with anti-CTLA4 therapy, Ipilimumab, conferred response rates of 10-20%, greatly improving the overall survival of patients with advanced melanoma. Despite the encouraging outcomes, there are relatively low response rates coupled with the delay of weeks to months before tumor shrinkage can be appreciated. Thus, understanding mechanisms of resistance to immune therapies, to improve response rates, shorten time to treatment effect and developing predictive biomarkers of response are vital to the care of melanoma patients. In order to identify possible resistance mechanisms to immunotherapy, a high-throughput in vitro screen with 850 different bio-active compounds (Selleckchem), was designed to search for agents that could either increase or decrease the resistance of melanoma tumor cells to T cell mediated killing. Paired tumor samples and TILs from melanoma patients were used to assess which compounds when used to treat the melanoma cell lines can enhance the cytotoxic activity of the TILs against the paired melanoma sample, using a flow cytometry based assay in which active caspase 3 was used as a read out of apoptosis. We identified heat shock protein 90 (HSP90) inhibitors amongst compounds that improved T cell mediated cytotoxicity. We show that treatment with the HSP90 inhibitor ganetespib (Synta) greatly improves T cell mediated cytotoxicity of both human and murine cancer cells lines in vitro. Furthermore, in vivo murine studies using the MC38/gp100 tumor model show that ganestespib in combination with anti-CTLA4, resulted in superior antitumor effect and survival compared to either treatment alone (Average tumor volume at day 21 of treatment: Vehicle 294.3mm3, α-CTLA4 193 mm3, Ganetespib 237.5 mm3 and Ganetespib + α-CTLA4 105.8 mm3, P < 0.0001). Microarray analysis of human cell lines treated with ganetespib in vitro revealed an increase in interferon alpha (IFN-α) response genes including IFIT1, IFIT2, IFIT3 and IFIH1. Silencing IFIT2 abrogated the synergy observed with ganetespib treatment and T cell mediated killing, suggesting that the IFN-α response pathway plays an important role in this combination therapy. We are further elucidating the role of these genes in the synergy observed. This will enable the emergence of a new combination therapy of HSP90 inhibitors and anti-CTLA4 for the treatment of melanoma patients that will increase the percentage of patients responding to immunotherapy and achieving long term responses. Citation Format: Rina M. Mbofung, Jodi A. McKenzie, Shruti Malu, Chengwen Liu, Leila Williams, Weiyi Peng, Zhe Wang, Satyendra Tripathi, Trang Tieu, Shuping Zhao, Seram Devi, Isere Kuiatse, Emily Ashkin, Leah Bailey, Jason Roszik, Samir Hanash, Timothy Heffernan, Richard E. Davis, Rodabe N. Amaria, Patrick Hwu. Inhibition of HSP90 enhances T cell-mediated antitumor immune responses through expression of interferon-alpha response Genes. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 107th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2016 Apr 16-20; New Orleans, LA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2016;76(14 Suppl):Abstract nr 4360.

The SWI/SNF multi-subunit complex modulates chromatin structure through the activity of two mutually exclusive catalytic subunits, SMARCA2 and SMARCA4, which both contain a bromodomain and an ATPase domain. Using RNAi, cancer-specific vulnerabilities have been identified in SWI/SNF mutant tumors, including SMARCA4-deficient lung cancer, however, the contribution of conserved, druggable protein domains to this anticancer phenotype is unknown. Here, we functionally deconstructed the SMARCA2/4 paralog dependence of cancer cells using bioinformatics, genetic and pharmacological tools. We evaluated a potent and selective SMARCA2/4 bromodomain inhibitor (PFI-3) and characterized its activity in chromatin-binding and cell-functional assays focusing on cells with altered SWI/SNF status (e.g. Lung, Synovial Sarcoma, Leukemia, and Rhabdoid tumors). We demonstrated that PFI-3 is a cell-permeable probe capable of displacing ectopically expressed, GFP-tagged SMARCA2-bromodomain from chromatin, yet contrary to target knockdown, the inhibitor failed to display an antiproliferative phenotype. Mechanistically, the lack of pharmacological efficacy was reconciled by the failure of bromodomain inhibition to displace endogenous, full-length SMARCA2 from chromatin as determined by in situ cell extraction, chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP) and target gene expression and promoter occupancy studies. Using RNAi and cDNA complementation (bromodomain and ATPase-dead constructs), we identified the catalytic ATPase domain, and not the bromodomain of SMARCA2, as a relevant therapeutic target. Taken together, our complementary genetic and pharmacological studies exemplify a general strategy for bromodomain drug-target validation and in case of SMARCA2/4 highlight the requirement for drugging the more challenging helicase/ATPase domain affording potential synthetic-lethal treatment options to cancer patients with genetically defined alterations in SWI/SNF. Citation Format: Bhavatarini Vangamudi, Thomas Paul, Parantu K. Shah, Maria K. Alimova, Lisa Nottebaum, Xi Shi, Yanai Zhan, Elisabetta Leo, Harshad S. Mahadeshwar, Alexei Protopopov, Andrew Futreal, Trang N. Tieu, Mike Peoples, Alessia Petrocchi, Joseph R. Marszalek, Carlo Toniatti, Timothy P. Heffernan, Dominique Verhelle, Giulio Draetta, Dafydd Owen, Philip Jones, Wylie Palmer, Shikhar Sharma, Jannik N. Andersen. The SMARCA2/4 catalytic activity, but not the bromodomain, is a drug target in SWI/SNF mutant cancers. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 106th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2015 Apr 18-22; Philadelphia, PA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2015;75(15 Suppl):Abstract nr 3528. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2015-3528