tozasertib (MK-0457)

Single-cell analysis revealed that AURKB suppressed anti-tumor immunity by increasing MIF-CD74/CXCR4 signaling between tumor cells and lymphocytes. Our study suggests that AURKB is a newly identified anti-tumor immunity suppressor, whose inhibitors may be developed as novel anti-tumor immunity drugs and may have synergistic anti-melanoma effects with immune checkpoint therapies.

High SKA3 expression led to poor prognosis in patients with HCC by enhancing HCC proliferation and repressing immune cell infiltration surrounding HCC. SKA3 may be used as a biomarker for poor prognosis and as a therapeutic target in HCC.

In this study, we discovered two tamoxifen combination therapies, with simeprevir and VX-680, that reduce the tumor burden in animal models of ER+ breast cancer more than either compound or tamoxifen alone. Additionally, these tamoxifen combinations reduced the expression of HER2, a hallmark of tamoxifen treatment, which can facilitate acquisition of a treatment-resistant phenotype. These combinations could provide clinical benefit by potentiating tamoxifen treatment in ER+ breast cancer.

Platinum-taxane chemotherapy is the first-line standard-of-care treatment administered to patients with epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC), and faces the major challenge of cisplatin resistance. Our mathematical model shows that the feedback loop has the potential to act as a biological switch to maintain on- (activated) or off- (deactivated) status, implying the possible resistance of single use of VX-680 or TMEM147-AS1 siRNA. The combined use reduces both the protein level of AURKA using TMEM147-AS1 siRNA and its kinase activity using VX-680, showing more significant effect than the use of TMEM147-AS1 siRNA or VX-680 alone, which provides a potential strategy for EOC treatment.

Through connective map analysis, therapeutically potential compounds like tozasertib and TPCA-1 were identified, which can be used synergistically with immunotherapy to improve the poor prognosis of patients with high TREM1 levels. Through a systematic and comprehensive pan-cancer analysis, we demonstrated that overexpression of TREM1 in tumors correlated closely with unfavorable outcome, infiltration of immune-suppressive cells, and immune regulation, which highlights its potential use as a tumor prognostic biomarker and a novel target for immunotherapy.

Low risk patients were more sensitive to small molecule drugs including Erlotinib, Sunitinib, MG-132, CGP-082996, AZ628, Sorafenib, VX-680, and Z-LLNle-CHO. Four risk genes (CALB1, CPA3, NOXA1, and TNNT1) had significant positive correlation with their methylation level, while six genes (CCL22, GPRC5B, HSPA1A, MFNG, PABPC1L, and PCOLCE2) were negatively correlated with their methylation level. This study provides novel understanding of heterogeneity in COAD from the perspective of senescence, and develops signatures for prognosis prediction in COAD.

Hierarchical clustering of cell fitness profiles reveals that these compounds cluster with each other, rather than with known AURK inhibitors such as AMG900 and VX-680. The discovery and optimization of compounds that disrupt AURKB localization are successfully facilitated by MIPS. Our findings suggest that 2-phenoxy-3, 4'-bipyridine derivatives have the potential to be further developed as effective therapeutics for the treatment of malignancy by delocalizing AURKB.

Especially, we predicted specific drugs for SBA based on differential gene expression signatures between malignant cells and normal epithelial cells of SBA, and verified more potent inhibitory effects of volasertib and tozasertib for SBA cancer cells than conventional drugs of SBA at the same concentration, which provides new clues for treatments of SBA. In summary, our study provides a blueprint of the molecular signatures of both tumor cells and tumor microenvironment cells in SBA and reveals potential targets and drug candidates for its clinical treatments.

Taken together, the present study demonstrates that oxostephanine plays dual roles in inhibiting Aurora kinase activity and angiogenesis. Thus, it may have potential for use as a drug in cancer treatment.

We further found that compared to patients with low-risk score, patients with high-risk score had higher sensitivity to some drugs of targeting the immune microenvironment, including TGFβ receptor inhibitors SB525334 ( P <0.0001) and SB505124 ( P <0.0001) and immunomodulator Lenalidomide ( P =0.041), as well as NF-κB inhibitors Parthenolide ( P <0.0001) and TPCA-1 ( P <0.0001) and JAK inhibitors Ruxolitinib ( P =0.014) and TG101348 ( P =0.0053), accompanying with significantly lower IC50 values. In addition, another common chemotherapeutic drug Gemcitabine was also predicted to be more sensitive for patients with high-risk score ( P =0.047). Other targeted drugs such as Aurora kinase inhibitors VX-680 ( P <0.0001) and ZM-447439 ( P =0.014), Bcl-2 inhibitors Obatoclax Mesylate ( P =0.00036) and Navitoclax ( P <0.0001), and CDK inhibitors Roscovitine ( P =0.0012), AT-7519 ( P =0.0033), PHA-793887 ( P <0.0001) and THZ2-49 ( P =0.0053) also exhibited higher drug sensitivity for patients with high-risk score. Conclusions : PIM1 mutations play a vital role in patient risk stratification and provide novel insights into therapeutic decision making for DLBCL patients with high-risk score.

Our study shows that, irrespective of the genetic background, cellular responses to Aurora inhibition in AML are markedly impaired by hypoxia. This suggests that AML LSCs might not be eradicated by tozasertib treatment.

Inhibition of PDK with dichloroacetate (DCA) resulted in increased mitochondrial permeability and cell death in tozasertib-resistant glioma cell lines. Based on these results, we believe that PDK is a selective target for the tozasertib-resistance phenotype and should be considered for further preclinical evaluations.

In addition, the combination of VX-680 and cisplatin markedly decreased the expressions of matrix metalloproteinases-2 (MMP-2), vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), p-extracellular signal-regulated protein kinase and p-RAC-α serine/threonine-protein kinase compared to VX-680 or cisplatin only treatment. Altogether, these findings strongly suggest that the combination of VX-680 and cisplatin could exert a synergistic antitumor effect in ESCC cells and this combination might represent a promising therapeutic strategy against ESCC.

In conclusion, our study confirmed the pivotal role of low oxygen environment in regulating cellular response to Aurora kinase inhibition and sets the rationale for further investigations aimed to identify new combination therapies against AML LSCs. This study was supported in part by AILBologna.

These results suggest an essential role of Cdc20 in tumor formation and metastasis of TNBC, which might be a potential target therapy for TNBC treatment.

Inhibition of PAINT decreased cell proliferation, S-phase progression, increased expression of apoptotic markers, and improved sensitivity to docetaxel and Aurora kinase inhibitor VX-680. Transcriptome analysis followed by qRT-PCR validation showed differentially expressed genes involved in epithelial mesenchymal transition (EMT), apoptosis and drug resistance in PAINT-expressing cells. Our study establishes an oncogenic function of PAINT in PCa.

VX-680 is an effective pan-Aurora kinase inhibitor; however, its clinical efficacy was not satisfying...Strikingly, combined inhibition of Haspin and AURKB had a better efficacy than single-agent treatment in both head and neck squamous cell carcinoma and non-small cell lung cancer. Taken together, our findings have uncovered a synthetic lethal interaction between AURKB and Haspin, which provides a strong rationale for this combination therapy for cancer patients.