Combination drug screen targeting glioblastoma core vulnerabilities reveals pharmacological synergisms

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  • Raphael Berges
  • Marie Pierre Montero
  • Baptiste Mouysset
  • Patricia Piris
  • Kevin Muller
  • Guillaume Pinna
  • Tim W. Failes
  • Greg M. Arndt
  • Philippe Morando
  • Nathalie Baeza-Kallee
  • Carole Colin
  • Olivier Chinot
  • Diane Braguer
  • Xavier Morelli
  • Nicolas André
  • Manon Carré
  • Emeline Tabouret
  • Dominique Figarella-Branger
  • Marion Le Grand
  • Eddy Pasquier

Background: Pharmacological synergisms are an attractive anticancer strategy. However, with more than 5000 approved-drugs and compounds in clinical development, identifying synergistic treatments represents a major challenge. Methods: High-throughput screening was combined with target deconvolution and functional genomics to reveal targetable vulnerabilities in glioblastoma. The role of the top gene hit was investigated by RNA interference, transcriptomics and immunohistochemistry in glioblastoma patient samples. Drug combination screen using a custom-made library of 88 compounds in association with six inhibitors of the identified glioblastoma vulnerabilities was performed to unveil pharmacological synergisms. Glioblastoma 3D spheroid, organotypic ex vivo and syngeneic orthotopic mouse models were used to validate synergistic treatments. Findings: Nine targetable vulnerabilities were identified in glioblastoma and the top gene hit RRM1 was validated as an independent prognostic factor. The associations of CHK1/MEK and AURKA/BET inhibitors were identified as the most potent amongst 528 tested pairwise drug combinations and their efficacy was validated in 3D spheroid models. The high synergism of AURKA/BET dual inhibition was confirmed in ex vivo and in vivo glioblastoma models, without detectable toxicity. Interpretation: Our work provides strong pre-clinical evidence of the efficacy of AURKA/BET inhibitor combination in glioblastoma and opens new therapeutic avenues for this unmet medical need. Besides, we established the proof-of-concept of a stepwise approach aiming at exploiting drug poly-pharmacology to unveil druggable cancer vulnerabilities and to fast-track the identification of synergistic combinations against refractory cancers. Funding: This study was funded by institutional grants and charities.

Original languageEnglish
Article number104752
JournalEBioMedicine
Volume95
Number of pages19
ISSN2352-3964
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2023

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 The Author(s)

    Research areas

  • Cancer vulnerabilities, Drug combination screening, Glioblastoma, Pharmacological synergisms, Target deconvolution

ID: 370475682