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Mutant RB1 enhances therapeutic efficacy of PARPis in lung adenocarcinoma by triggering the cGAS/STING pathway
Qi Dong, Tong Yu, Bo Chen, Mingyue Liu, Xiang Sun, Huiying Cao, Kaidong Liu, Huanhuan Xu, Yuquan Wang, Shuping Zhuang, Zixin Jin, Haihai Liang, Yang Hui, Yunyan Gu
Qi Dong, Tong Yu, Bo Chen, Mingyue Liu, Xiang Sun, Huiying Cao, Kaidong Liu, Huanhuan Xu, Yuquan Wang, Shuping Zhuang, Zixin Jin, Haihai Liang, Yang Hui, Yunyan Gu
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Research Article Genetics Therapeutics

Mutant RB1 enhances therapeutic efficacy of PARPis in lung adenocarcinoma by triggering the cGAS/STING pathway

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Abstract

Poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase inhibitors (PARPis) are approved for cancer therapy according to their synthetic lethal interactions, and clinical trials have been applied in non–small cell lung cancer. However, the therapeutic efficacy of PARPis in lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD) is still unknown. We explored the effect of a mutated retinoblastoma gene (RB1) on PARPi sensitivity in LUAD. Bioinformatic screening was performed to identify PARPi-sensitive biomarkers. Here, we showed that viability of LUAD cell lines with mutated RB1 was significantly decreased by PARPis (niraparib, rucaparib, and olaparib). RB1 deficiency induced genomic instability, prompted cytosolic double-stranded DNA (dsDNA) formation, activated the cGAS/STING pathway, and upregulated downstream chemokines CCL5 and CXCL10, triggering immune cell infiltration. Xenograft experiments indicated that PARPi treatment reduced tumorigenesis in RB1-KO mice. Additionally, single-cell RNA sequencing analysis showed that malignant cells with downregulated expression of RB1 had more communications with other cell types, exhibiting activation of specific signaling such as GAS, IFN response, and antigen-presenting and cytokine activities. Our findings suggest that RB1 mutation mediates the sensitivity to PARPis through a synthetic lethal effect by triggering the cGAS/STING pathway and upregulation of immune infiltration in LUAD, which may be a potential therapeutic strategy.

Authors

Qi Dong, Tong Yu, Bo Chen, Mingyue Liu, Xiang Sun, Huiying Cao, Kaidong Liu, Huanhuan Xu, Yuquan Wang, Shuping Zhuang, Zixin Jin, Haihai Liang, Yang Hui, Yunyan Gu

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Figure 8

RB1 deficiency increases immune cell infiltration.

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RB1 deficiency increases immune cell infiltration.
(A–C) Comparison of ...
(A–C) Comparison of the “macrophages M1,” “macrophages M0,” and “Th2 cells” infiltration in RB1-mutant samples with RB1-WT samples. (D) Estimation of IFN-γ response between RB1-mutant and RB1-WT LUAD samples in TCGA. (E–H) Differential infiltration of “T cells follicular helper,” “T cells regulatory (Tregs),” “NK cells activated,” and “macrophages M0” between RB1-H and RB1-L samples. (I) The “proliferating NK/T cells in lung” gene set was significantly enriched in RB1-mutant samples. (J) The t-distributed stochastic neighbor embedding (tSNE) visualization of LUAD cells in GSE171145, colored by cell types. (K) The number of communications between ME-RB1-L or ME-RB1-H with other cell types in the GSE131907 (tLung) and GSE171145 data sets. Green and pink bars indicate communications of ME-RB1-L cells and ME-RB1-H cells, respectively. (L) The number of communications between ME-RB1-L or ME-RB1-H with other cell subtypes in early-stage (tLung) and advanced-stage (tL/B) LUAD patients from the GSE131907 data set. Brown and pink bars indicate communications of ME-RB1-L cells and ME-RB1-H cells, respectively. P values were calculated by 1-sided Wilcoxon’s rank-sum test (A–H) and permutation test according to gene set variation analysis (I).

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