The PI3K Inhibitor GDC-0941 Induces Growth Arrest and Apoptosis of Acute Myeloid Leukemia Cells.

Abstract 3787

Poster Board III-723

Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is a biologically and molecularly heterogeneous malignancy characterized by an accumulation of myeloid-lineage cells in the blood and bone marrow. Phosphatidylinositol 3' kinase (PI3K) -mediated signaling is frequently dysregulated in cancer and controls fundamental cellular functions such as cell migration, growth, survival and development of drug resistance in many cancers, including AML, and therefore represents an attractive therapeutic target, even against the backdrop of AML disease heterogeneity. In AML, for example, activating mutations in Ras and Flt3 are common and a number of autocrine and paracrine signaling mechanisms have been proposed as important disease mediators; all converge on PI3K as an important signal transduction node to provide growth- and survival-promoting effects. Here, we demonstrate that PI3K p110-a,b,d catalytic subunits are all prevalent across a panel of ∼30 cell lines and that the majority of cell lines as well as primary patient samples show evidence of PI3K pathway activation. We demonstrate in vitro with both cell lines and patient cell isolates, that a potent and selective pan-isoform PI3K inhibitor, GDC-0941, modulates pharmacodynamic markers such as p-Akt, p-4E-BP1, and p-FOXO-3a, and that treated cells show a G₀/G₁ cell-cycle arrest. A strong induction of apoptosis is observed by annexin/PI staining with upregulation of cleaved caspases and PARP. Preliminary observations suggest significant induction of p27 and Bim as direct transcriptional targets of FOXO-3a, as well as downregulation of c-Myc levels; these targets may represent key mediators of observed cellular effects and are the subject of ongoing work. Additional studies are currently underway to identify clinical standard-of-care agents and new molecular entities (pipeline NMEs) that combine favorably with PI3k-inhibition in vitro, and the results of several in-vivo xenograft studies will also be presented.