ABL Tyrosine Kinase Plays an Important Role in Mechanisms Involved in Genomic Instability in Multiple Myeloma

Homologous recombination (HR) is a DNA repair mechanism that uses extensive sequence homology in the participating DNA molecules for an accurate repair. In a normal cellular environment, HR is the most precise DNA repair mechanism and therefore has a unique role in the maintenance of genomic integrity and stability. Normally HR is tightly regulated, however, as it involves incision and recombination of genomic DNA fragments, if dysregulated or dysfunctional, it can also be deleterious. Consistent with this view, we have shown that elevated HR activity mediates genomic instability and development of drug resistance in MM. Here we have now investigated the mechanism that may contribute to dysregulation of HR and genomic instability in MM, as well as evaluated an agent able to decrease acquisition of new genomic changes. It has been shown that Abl kinase regulates recombinase RAD51 by affecting its expression, stability as well as phosphorylation at Y315. Phosphorylation of RAD51 (at Y315) mediates its dissociation from BCR-ABL1 kinase and migration to the nucleus to form nuclear foci, one of the initial steps in HR. We have evaluated nilotinib, a small molecule inhibitor of Abl kinase and observed that it inhibited HR activity in all MM cell lines tested, in a dose-dependent manner. At 5 µM, nilotinib inhibited HR activity in MM1S, RPMI 8226 and U266 MM cells by 64%, 78% and 80%, respectively. Nilotinib led to reduced phosphorylation of RAD51 at Y315, the phosphorylation which affects RAD51 migration. Nilotinib-mediated inhibition of RAD51 and HR activity was also associated with reduced DNA breaks, as indicated by reduced levels of g-H2AX. To determine the impact of nilotinib on genome stability, MM (RPMI 8226) cells were cultured in the presence of nilotinib for three weeks and the impact of this treatment on appearance of new copy number changes was evaluated using SNP arrays. Using day 0 cells as baseline to identify new copy number events at 3 weeks, the acquisition of new genomic changes was inhibited by 50% in the presence of nilotinib. As we have previously reported that induction of HR helps develop dexamethasone resistance in a short period of time, we investigated whether inhibition of HR by nilotinib may improve efficacy of melphalan and dexamethasone in MM. Nilotinib (at 2.5 µM) significantly increased the efficacy of melphalan (10 µM); and dexamethasone (10 nM) in RPMI 8226 cells. The relation between these observed effects and inhibition of HR is being investigated.

In conclusion, we have observed that Abl tyrosine kinase plays an important role in genomic instability in myeloma and its inhibition using nilotinib, suppresses the underlying mechanism of genomic instability and reduces acquisition of new genomic changes with potential for clinical application.