American Association for Cancer Research
Browse

Table S1 from Exploiting the Therapeutic Interaction of WNT Pathway Activation and Asparaginase for Colorectal Cancer Therapy

Download (12.87 kB)
dataset
posted on 2023-04-03, 22:20 authored by Laura Hinze, Roxane Labrosse, James Degar, Teng Han, Emma M. Schatoff, Sabine Schreek, Salmaan Karim, Connor McGuckin, Joshua R. Sacher, Florence Wagner, Martin Stanulla, Chen Yuan, Ewa Sicinska, Marios Giannakis, Kimmie Ng, Lukas E. Dow, Alejandro Gutierrez

Supplementary Table 1

Funding

NIH

NCI

Cancer Research UK

Stand Up To Cancer

National Institute of General Medical Sciences

DOD

History

ARTICLE ABSTRACT

Colorectal cancer is driven by mutations that activate canonical WNT/β-catenin signaling, but inhibiting WNT has significant on-target toxicity, and there are no approved therapies targeting dominant oncogenic drivers. We recently found that activating a β-catenin–independent branch of WNT signaling that inhibits GSK3-dependent protein degradation induces asparaginase sensitivity in drug-resistant leukemias. To test predictions from our model, we turned to colorectal cancer because these cancers can have WNT-activating mutations that function either upstream (i.e., R-spondin fusions) or downstream (APC or β-catenin mutations) of GSK3, thus allowing WNT/β-catenin and WNT-induced asparaginase sensitivity to be unlinked genetically. We found that asparaginase had little efficacy in APC or β-catenin–mutant colorectal cancer, but was profoundly toxic in the setting of R-spondin fusions. Pharmacologic GSK3α inhibition was sufficient for asparaginase sensitization in APC or β-catenin–mutant colorectal cancer, but not in normal intestinal progenitors. Our findings demonstrate that WNT-induced therapeutic vulnerabilities can be exploited for colorectal cancer therapy. Solid tumors are thought to be asparaginase-resistant via de novo asparagine synthesis. In leukemia, GSK3α-dependent protein degradation, a catabolic amino acid source, mediates asparaginase resistance. We found that asparaginase is profoundly toxic to colorectal cancers with WNT-activating mutations that inhibit GSK3. Aberrant WNT activation can provide a therapeutic vulnerability in colorectal cancer.See related commentary by Davidsen and Sullivan, p. 1632.This article is highlighted in the In This Issue feature, p. 1611