A Method for Screening and Validation of Resistant Mutations Against Kinase Inhibitors

Summary

Emergence of genetic resistance against kinase inhibitor therapy poses significant challenge for effective cancer therapy. Identification and characterization of resistant mutations against a newly developed drug helps in better clinical management and next generation drug design. Here, we describe our protocol for in vitro screening and validation of resistant mutations.

Abstract

The discovery of BCR/ABL as a driver oncogene in chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) resulted in the development of Imatinib, which, in fact, demonstrated the potential of targeting the kinase in cancers by effectively treating the CML patients. This observation revolutionized drug development to target the oncogenic kinases implicated in various other malignancies, such as, EGFR, B-RAF, KIT and PDGFRs. However, one major drawback of anti-kinase therapies is the emergence of drug resistance mutations rendering the target to have reduced or lost affinity for the drug. Understanding the mechanisms employed by resistant variants not only helps in developing the next generation inhibitors but also gives impetus to clinical management using personalized medicine. We reported a retroviral vector based screening strategy to identify the spectrum of resistance conferring mutations in BCR/ABL, which has helped in developing the next generation BCR/ABL inhibitors. Using Ruxolitinib and JAK2 as a drug target pair, here we describe in vitro screening methods that utilizes the mouse BAF3 cells expressing the random mutation library of JAK2 kinase.

Introduction

Protein kinases are key regulatory enzymes of intracellular signal transduction pathways that seemingly modulate every cellular function. A proper control of kinase mediated signaling is crucial to homeostasis and development, which mostly relies on proper regulation of kinases, phosphatases and its degradation by UPS (ubiquitin proteasome system). Deregulated kinases are at the center stage of many cancers and implicated in host of human diseases ¹. Human genome encodes more than 500 protein kinases that have been linked, directly or indirectly, to ~400 human diseases ². These observations supported the concept for therapeutic targeting of kinas....

Protocol

NOTE: All procedures in this protocol were conducted according to the National Institute of Health guidelines for the ethical treatment and care of animals, and according to an approved IACUC animal use protocol.

1. Cell Line Maintenance

1. Culture BAF3 cells in RPMI-1640 medium supplemented with 10% fetal bovine serum and penicillin/streptomycin (100 units/ml and 100 µg/ml) and spent culture medium of Wehi Cells. Grow HEK293T cells in DMEM supplemented with 10% fetal bovine serum and penicillin/streptomycin (100 units/ml and 100 μg/ml). Maintain cells at 37 °C in a humidified atmosphere containing 5% CO2.

....

Results

Emergence of genetic mutations poses great challenge for the targeted anti kinase therapy. Mutational studies, besides providing mechanistic and functional insights that are instrumental in selection and design of next-generation drug development, also allows better clinical management and may in future be more helpful for personalized treatment. In this experiment, we show screening for ruxolitinib resistance mutations in JAK2-V617F kinase (Figure 1). We constructed pMSCV-JAK2-V617F-cherry.gateway vecto.......

Discussion

The clinical success of Imatinib in treating CML demonstrated not only the potential of targeting the rouge kinases by small molecule inhibitors, but also uncovered limitations of targeted therapy: clinical relapse and emergence of drug resistance mutations in the target gene. Identification of resistance mutations helps in better clinical management and development of next-generation inhibitors. This protocol describes a methodology to identify drug-resistant mutations in the targeted gene. This method uses a randomly m.......

Materials

List of materials used in this article

Name	Company	Catalog Number	Comments
Cell and Tissue culture
BaF3 Cells	ATCC
HEK293T cells	ATCC
pMSCV-JAK2-V617F-puro.GW	A gift from Ross Levine
pMSCV-JAK2-V617F/Y931C.GW	Made in house
pMSCV-JAK2-V617F/L983F.GW	Made in house
pMSCV-JAK2-V617F/P58A.GW	Made in house
pMSCV-V617F-Cherry.GW	Made in house
pMSCV-JAK2-V617F/Y931C-cherry.GW	Made in house
pMSCV-JAK2-V617F/L983F-cherry.GW	Made in house
pMSCV-Luciferase-puro.GW	Made in house
RPMI	Cellgro (corning)	15-040-CV
DMEM	Cellgro (corning)	15-013-CV
Penn/Strep	Cellgro (corning)	30-002-CI
FBS	Atlanta biological	S11150
Trypsin EDTA 1X	Cellgro (corning)	25-052-CI
1x PBS	Cellgro (corning)	21-040-CV
L-Glutamine	Cellgro (corning)	25-005-CL
Puromycin	Gibco (life technologies)	A11138-03
Protamine sulfate	Sigma	P3369	5 mg/ml stock in water
Trypan Blue solution (0.4%)	Sigma	T8154
DMSO	Cellgro (corning)	25-950-CQC
INCB018424 (Ruxolitinib)	ChemieTeK	941678-49-5
WST-1	Roche	11644807001
0.45 micron disc filter	PALL	2016-10
70 micron nylon cell strainer	Becton Dickinson	352350
Bacterial Culture
XL-1 red E. coli cells	Agilent Tech	200129
SOC	New England Biolabs	B90920s
Ampicillin	Sigma	A0166	100 mg/ml stock solution
Bacto agar	Difco	214050
Terrific broth	Becton Dickinson	243820
Agarose	Genemate	E-3119-500
Kits
Dneasy Blood& tissue kit	Qiagen	69506
Expand long template PCR system	Roche	1168134001
Wizard Sv gel and PCR clean up system	Promega	A9282
Pure Yield plasmid mini prep system	Promega	A1222
PCR Cloning System with Gateway Technology with pDONR 221 & OmniMAX 2 Competent Cells	Invitrogen	12535029
Gateway  LR Clonase Enzyme mix	Invitrogen	11791019
Mouse reagents
Vivo-Glo Luciferin in-vivo Grade	Promega	P1043
1/2 cc Lo-Dose u-100 insulin syringe 28 G1/2	Becton Dickinson	329461
Mortor pestle	Coor tek	60316 and 60317
Isoflorane (Isothesia TM)	Butler Schien	29405
Instruments
NAPCO series 8000 WJ CO2 incubator	Thermo scientific
Swing bucket rotor centrifuge 5810R	Eppendorf
TC-10 automated cell counter	Bio-RAD		This is not necessary, one can use standard hemocytomemetr for cell counting