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© 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.

Abstract

The ErbB lineage of oncogenic receptor tyrosine kinases is frequently overexpressed in head and neck squamous cell carcinomas. A common co-regulon triggered by the ErbB proteins; involving shared signaling circuitries; may harbor co-druggable targets or response biomarkers for potential future multimodal precision therapy in ErbB-driven head and neck squamous cell carcinoma. We here present a cohort-based; genome-wide analysis of 488 head and neck squamous cell carcinomas curated as part of The Cancer Genome Atlas Project to characterize genes that are significantly positively co-regulated with the four ErbB proteins and those that are shared among all ErbBs denoting a common ErbB co-regulon. Significant positive gene correlations involved hundreds of genes that were co-expressed with the four ErbB family members (q < 0.05). A common; overlapping co-regulon consisted of a core set of 268 genes that were uniformly co-regulated with all four ErbB genes and highly enriched for functions in chromatin organization and histone modifications. This high-priority set of genes contained ten putative antineoplastic drug-gene interactions. The nature and directionality of these ten drug-gene associations was an inhibiting interaction for seven (PIK3CB; PIK3C2B; HDAC4; FRK; PRKCE; EPHA4; and DYRK1A) of them in which the drug decreases the biological activity or expression of the gene target. For three (CHD4; ARID1A; and PBRM1) of the associations; the directionality of the interaction was such that the gene predicted sensitivit y to the drug suggesting utility as potential response biomarkers. Drug-gene interactions that predicted the gene product to be reduced by the drug included a variety of potential targeted molecular agent classes. This unbiased genome-wide analysis identified a target-rich environment for multimodal therapeutic approaches in tumors that are putatively ErbB-driven. The results of this study require preclinical validation before ultimately devising lines of combinatorial treatment strategies for ErbB-dependent head and neck squamous cell carcinomas that incorporate these findings.

Details

Title
An ErbB Lineage Co-Regulon Harbors Potentially Co-Druggable Targets for Multimodal Precision Therapy in Head and Neck Squamous Cell Carcinoma
Author
Bredel, Markus 1 ; Kim, Hyunsoo 2   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Bonner, James A 1 

 Department of Radiation Oncology, O’Neal Comprehensive Cancer Center, Heersink School of Medicine, The University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL 35294, USA 
 Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center, University of Northern Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC 27599, USA 
First page
13497
Publication year
2022
Publication date
2022
Publisher
MDPI AG
ISSN
16616596
e-ISSN
14220067
Source type
Scholarly Journal
Language of publication
English
ProQuest document ID
2734636266
Copyright
© 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.