Combination drug strategy could overcome resistance to key leukemia treatment
Researchers have identified a way to restore leukemia cell sensitivity to cytarabine, a standard cancer drug that many patients' tumors resist. By pairing cytarabine with existing medications that block a different metabolic pathway, the study suggests a near-term path to improving outcomes for acute myeloid leukemia patients without developing entirely new drugs.
Originaltitel: <scp>IMPDH</scp> inhibition enhances cytarabine efficacy in <scp>SAMHD1</scp> ‐expressing leukaemia cells via guanine nucleotide depletion
The nucleoside analogue cytarabine (ara-C) is part of standard treatment against acute myeloid leukaemia (AML). The efficacy of this therapy is dependent upon accumulation of the active triphosphate metabolite ara-CTP, which mis-incorporates into genomic DNA, triggering cell death. The deoxyribonucleoside triphosphate triphosphohydrolase (dNTPase) SAMHD1 can hydrolyse ara-CTP and thereby convert the active metabolite back to its inactive prodrug form. This constitutes a barrier to treatment efficacy and thus strategies to target SAMHD1 are warranted. SAMHD1 activity is allosterically regulated by nucleotides, which are synthesised in cells via distinct pathways. We screened a collection of drugs targeting nucleotide biosynthetic enzymes and identified that inhibition of inosine-5'-monophosphate dehydrogenase (IMPDH), responsible for catalysing the rate-limiting step in guanine nucleotide biosynthesis, sensitises AML cell lines to ara-C in a SAMHD1-dependent manner. We show that approved drugs inhibiting IMPDH-mycophenolic acid and ribavirin-imbalance deoxyribonucleoside triphosphate pools and increase ara-C efficacy in SAMHD1-proficient, but not deficient, leukaemic cells. Altogether, we provide insight into SAMHD1 regulation in leukaemic cells and show how this process can be exploited by approved drugs to improve ara-C therapy.