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Analysis of the antineoplastic action of Class I HDAC inhibitors to define new combination therapies for urothelial carcinoma

Subject Area Reproductive Medicine, Urology
Term from 2020 to 2024
Project identifier Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 437306137
 
Final Report Year 2024

Final Report Abstract

Patients with muscle-invasive growing urothelial carcinoma (UC) experience an aggressive course. Due to therapy resistance, standard chemotherapy and modern immunotherapies hardly improve tumor-specific long-term survival. New therapeutic approaches are urgently needed. Our approach is to use pharmacological inhibitors of epigenetic enzymes such as histone deacetylases (HDACi), especially class I enzymes. Since our lead compound romidepsin (Romi) was poorly tolerated by benign control cells, this project should test 1) other commercial HDACi and 2) new HDACi developed at HHU for their better suitability (similar antineoplastic effects with lower normal toxicity). Since synergistic effects of a combination treatment allow dose reduction, suitable combination partners for class I HDACi should be tested in vitro and in vivo. Compared to Romi, Entinostat and RGFP966 were less effective. Quisinostat (Quisi) showed a better efficacy profile in terms of cell death induction and normal tolerance. It had a strong synergistic effect in combination with cisplatin or the PARP inhibitor Talazoparib, even in cisplatin-resistant UC cell lines and in vivo. The project enabled the development of 2 new effective combination therapies, which will be further tested for clinical translation, including in chemotherapy-resistant settings. Following the screening analysis of new HDACi, 6 compounds were characterized in detail. They had comparable antineoplastic effects to Romi, but were better tolerated by benign cells. Combination with cisplatin was synergistic, suitability for further combination approaches will be tested in the future. We identified new HDACi with a better efficacy profile for UC therapy approaches.

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