Therapeutic Advantage of Targeting PRMT5 in Combination with Chemotherapies or EGFR/HER2 Inhibitors in Triple-Negative Breast Cancers

Rayan Dakroub,1,2 Solène Huard,1 Yara Hajj-Younes,1 Samyuktha Suresh,1 Bassam Badran,2 Hussein Fayyad-Kazan,2 Thierry Dubois1 1Breast Cancer Biology Group, Translational Research Department, Institut Curie-PSL Research University, Paris, 75005, France; 2Laboratory of Cancer Biology and Molecular Immunology, Faculty of Sciences-I, Lebanese University, Hadath, 1003, LebanonCorrespondence: Thierry Dubois, Breast Cancer Biology Group, Translational Research Department, Institut Curie-PSL Research University, Paris, 75005, France, Tel +33 156246250, Email thierry.dubois@curie.frPurpose: Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) is the most aggressive breast cancer subgroup characterized by a high risk of resistance to chemotherapies and high relapse potential. TNBC shows inter-and intra-tumoral heterogeneity; more than half expresses high EGFR levels and about 30% are classified as HER2-low breast cancers. High PRMT5 mRNA levels are associated with poor prognosis in TNBC and inhibiting PRMT5 impairs the viability of subsets of TNBC cell lines and delays tumor growth in TNBC mice models. TNBC patients may therefore benefit from a treatment targeting PRMT5. The aim of this study was to assess the therapeutic benefit of combining a PRMT5 inhibitor with different chemotherapies used in the clinics to treat TNBC patients, or with FDA-approved inhibitors targeting the HER family members.Methods: The drug combinations were performed using proliferation and colony formation assays on TNBC cell lines that were sensitive or resistant to EPZ015938, a PRMT5 inhibitor that has been evaluated in clinical trials. The chemotherapies analyzed were cisplatin, doxorubicin, camptothecin, and paclitaxel. The targeted therapies tested were erlotinib (EGFR inhibitor), neratinib (EGFR/HER2/HER4 inhibitor) and tucatinib (HER2 inhibitor).Results: We found that PRMT5 inhibition synergized mostly with cisplatin, and to a lesser extent with doxorubicin or camptothecin, but not with paclitaxel, to impair