BCR-ABL1 Kinase Inhibits DNA Glycosylases to Enhance Oxidative DNA Damage and Stimulate Genomic Instability

Abstract 520

Tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) such as imatinib, dasatinib and nilotinib revolutionized the treatment of BCR-ABL1 kinase-positive chronic myeloid leukemia in chronic phase (CML-CP). Unfortunately, 15–25% of patients initially responding favorably to imatinib will develop acquired drug resistance, which in 40–90% of cases is caused by genomic instability resulting in the appearance of clones expressing TKI resistant BCR-ABL1 kinase mutants. We reported that CML-CP leukemia stem and progenitor cell populations accumulate high amounts of reactive oxygen species (ROS) resulting in excessive oxidative DNA damage such as oxidized DNA bases (8-oxoguanine and 5-hydroxycytosine→uracil) (Nieborowska-Skorska et al., Blood, 2012). Unfaithful and/or inefficient repair of these lesions generates TKI resistant point mutations in BCR-ABL1 kinase. Oxidative DNA lesions may be removed by base excision repair (BER) or, if not removed, will create mismatches, which are repaired by mismatch repair (MMR). Since we found that MMR is inhibited in CML-CP (Stoklosa et al., Cancer Res., 2008), the activity of BER is critical to prevent the accumulation of point mutations. Using an array of specific substrates and inhibitors/blocking antibodies we found that two major glycosylases, uracil-DNA glycosylase UNG2 and 8-oxoguanine glycosylase (OGG1) responsible for the excision of uracil (product of oxidation of cytosine) and 8-oxoguanine (8-oxoG) from DNA, respectively, were inhibited in BCR-ABL1 –transformed cell lines and CD34+ CML cells. The inhibitory effect was even more pronounced in CML blast phase (CML-BP) in comparison to CML-CP, it depended on BCR-ABL1 kinase activity and was not accompanied by deregulation of nuclear expression and/or chromatin association of these glycosylases. The effect was BCR-ABL1 kinase-specific because several other fusion tyrosine kinases such as TEL-ABL1, TEL-PDGFbetaR and NPM-ALK did not reduce UNG2 activity. Using UNG2-specific inhibitor UGI we found that UNG2 activity diminished the number of oxidized DNA bases detected by modified comet assay and prevented accumulation of point mutations in reporter gene Na+/K+ATPase, which encode resistance to ouabain. In conclusion, we hypothesize that inhibition of UNG2 and OGG1, accompanied by reduced MMR activity is responsible for accumulation of TKI-resistant BCR-ABL1 kinase point mutations and perhaps also other point mutations facilitating malignant progression of CML.