Inhibition of ATR potentiates the cytotoxic effect of gemcitabine on pancreatic cancer cells through enhancement of DNA damage and abrogation of ribonucleotide reductase induction by gemcitabine

Liu,Shuang; Ge,Yubin; Wang,Tingting; Edwards,Holly; Ren,Qihang; Jiang,Yiqun; Quan,Chengshi; Wang,Guan

doi:10.3892/or.2017.5580

Inhibition of ATR potentiates the cytotoxic effect of gemcitabine on pancreatic cancer cells through enhancement of DNA damage and abrogation of ribonucleotide reductase induction by gemcitabine

Authors:
- Shuang Liu
- Yubin Ge
- Tingting Wang
- Holly Edwards
- Qihang Ren
- Yiqun Jiang
- Chengshi Quan
- Guan Wang
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Affiliations: National Engineering Laboratory for AIDS Vaccine, Key Laboratory for Molecular Enzymology and Engineering, The Ministry of Education, School of Life Sciences, Jilin University, Changchun, Jilin 130012, P.R. China, Department of Oncology, Wayne State University School of Medicine, Detroit, MI, USA, Department of Pathophysiology, College of Basic Medical Sciences, Jilin University, Changchun, Jilin 130021, P.R. China
Published online on: April 19, 2017 https://doi.org/10.3892/or.2017.5580
Pages: 3377-3386

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Abstract

Pancreatic cancer is a highly malignant disease with a dismal prognosis. Gemcitabine (GEM)-based chemotherapy is the first-line treatment for patients with advanced disease, although its efficacy is very limited, mainly due to drug resistance. Ataxia telangiectasia and Rad3-related (ATR) plays a critical role in the DNA damage response (DDR) which has been implicated in GEM resistance. Thus, targeting ATR represents a promising approach to enhance GEM antitumor activity. In the present study, we tested the antitumor activity of AZ20, a novel ATR-selective inhibitor, alone or combined with GEM in 5 pancreatic cancer cell lines. AZ20 treatment of the pancreatic cancer cell lines resulted in growth inhibition, with IC50 values ranging from 0.84 to 2.4 µM, but limited cell death. As expected, treatment of pancreatic cancer cell lines with AZ20 caused decreased phosphorylation of CHK1 (S-345). However, this was accompanied by DNA damage and S and G2/M cell cycle arrest, independent of TP53 gene mutational status. Importantly, combination of AZ20 with GEM resulted in synergistic inhibition of cell growth and cooperative induction of cell death in the pancreatic cancer cell lines. AZ20 significantly increased GEM-induced DNA damage and almost completely abrogated GEM-induced expression of the M2 subunit of ribonucleotide reductase. These findings suggest that inhibition of ATR is a promising strategy to enhance the antitumor activity of GEM for treating pancreatic cancer.

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