A strategy showing great promise for treating pancreatic cancer is to combine cytotoxic treatments with agents that abrogate the already-tenuous checkpoint functionality exhibited by most tumor cells. Drugs that target the checkpoint protein Chk1 (such as AZD7762, currently in Phase-I clinical trials) are of particular interest in the context of pancreatic cancer because Chk1 has also been shown to have a critical role in mediating the activity of Rad51, a key protein in homologous recombination repair (HRR) that is associated with resistance to DNA damaging treatments, and is upregulated in human pancreatic tumors. The long-term goal of our work is to improve the outcome of patients with pancreatic cancer by rationally adding Chk1 inhibitors to the combination of gemcitabine (Gem) + radiation. Our preliminary data show that AZD7762 is a potent chemo- and radiosensitizer of human pancreatic tumor cell lines that both decreases HRR and abrogates the G2/M checkpoint.
Specific Aim 1 is to determine the relative roles of cell cycle checkpoint abrogation and HRR inhibition in chemo- and radiosensitization by AZD7762. This work will allow us to identify mechanism-based molecular endpoints to be interrogated in future clinical studies, and to identify new targets for therapeutic intervention related to HRR activity. We hypothesize that checkpoint abrogation and HRR inhibition each play key but differing roles in (to Gem) and by AZD7762. Our preliminary results using both established cell lines implanted as xenografts and early passage human tumor xenografts also show that AZD7762 is a potent chemo- and radiosensitizer in vivo, providing strong motivation for conducting a clinical trial.
Specific Aim 2 is to use xenograft models to establish the basis for conducting a clinical trial combining AZD7762 with Gem + radiation, evaluating the role of drug schedule. The results of Aim 2 will help to define the design of our subsequent clinical trial.
Specific Aim 3 is to carry out a clinical trial using AZD7762 in combination with Gem + radiation in patients with locally advanced, unresectable pancreatic cancer. We will use a combination of Gem + radiation followed by Gem alone, combined with dose-escalating AZD7762, based on the schedule suggested in Aim 2. We hypothesize that the MTD for AZD7762 will be similar to that determined in the current phase I trials using Gem alone (i.e. that adding conformal radiation will have a minimal impact on the MTD of AZD7762 in combination with Gem). Also, we hypothesize that AZD7762 will inhibit Chk1 activity in surrogate normal tissues when administered at the MTD, and, possibly, at lower doses.

Public Health Relevance

This project is directly aimed at improving treatment of patients with pancreatic cancer, by identifying the biological differences among human pancreatic tumors that determine how well patients respond when a new type of drug (checkpoint inhibitor) is added to the current standard treatment for this disease (Gemcitabine plus radiation). The research plan includes both a clinical trial for patients diagnosed with unresectable (inoperable) pancreatic cancer, and laboratory studies using well-studied cell lines derived from pancreatic cancer patients.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Cancer Institute (NCI)
Type
Research Project (R01)
Project #
5R01CA138723-04
Application #
8433504
Study Section
Clinical Oncology Study Section (CONC)
Program Officer
Timmer, William C
Project Start
2010-04-01
Project End
2015-01-31
Budget Start
2013-02-01
Budget End
2014-01-31
Support Year
4
Fiscal Year
2013
Total Cost
$412,452
Indirect Cost
$145,493
Name
University of Michigan Ann Arbor
Department
Pharmacology
Type
Schools of Medicine
DUNS #
073133571
City
Ann Arbor
State
MI
Country
United States
Zip Code
48109
Parsels, Leslie A; Tanska, Daria M; Parsels, Joshua D et al. (2016) Dissociation of gemcitabine chemosensitization by CHK1 inhibition from cell cycle checkpoint abrogation and aberrant mitotic entry. Cell Cycle 15:730-9
Kausar, Tasneem; Schreiber, Jason S; Karnak, David et al. (2015) Sensitization of Pancreatic Cancers to Gemcitabine Chemoradiation by WEE1 Kinase Inhibition Depends on Homologous Recombination Repair. Neoplasia 17:757-66
Morgan, Meredith A; Lawrence, Theodore S (2015) Molecular Pathways: Overcoming Radiation Resistance by Targeting DNA Damage Response Pathways. Clin Cancer Res 21:2898-904
Morgan, Meredith A; Parsels, Leslie A; Maybaum, Jonathan et al. (2014) Improving the efficacy of chemoradiation with targeted agents. Cancer Discov 4:280-91
Popovtzer, Aron; Normolle, Daniel; Worden, Francis P et al. (2014) Phase I trial of radiotherapy concurrent with twice-weekly gemcitabine for head and neck cancer: translation from preclinical investigations aiming to improve the therapeutic ratio. Transl Oncol 7:479-83
Engelke, Carl G; Parsels, Leslie A; Qian, Yushen et al. (2013) Sensitization of pancreatic cancer to chemoradiation by the Chk1 inhibitor MK8776. Clin Cancer Res 19:4412-21
Lin, Steven H; George, Thomas J; Ben-Josef, Edgar et al. (2013) Opportunities and challenges in the era of molecularly targeted agents and radiation therapy. J Natl Cancer Inst 105:686-93
Venkatesha, Venkatasubbaiah A; Parsels, Leslie A; Parsels, Joshua D et al. (2012) Sensitization of pancreatic cancer stem cells to gemcitabine by Chk1 inhibition. Neoplasia 14:519-25
Vance, Sean; Liu, Erqi; Zhao, Lili et al. (2011) Selective radiosensitization of p53 mutant pancreatic cancer cells by combined inhibition of Chk1 and PARP1. Cell Cycle 10:4321-9
Parsels, Leslie A; Qian, Yushen; Tanska, Daria M et al. (2011) Assessment of chk1 phosphorylation as a pharmacodynamic biomarker of chk1 inhibition. Clin Cancer Res 17:3706-15

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