Codon Specific Readthrough as a Mechanism of BRCA2 Restoration in Acquired PARP Inhibitor and Chemotherapy Resistance [WES]
Deleterious alterations of the gene encoding BRCA2, a protein involved in homologous recombination (HR), contribute to the pathogenesis of a subset of ovarian, breast, prostate and pancreatic cancers as well as their increased sensitivity to platinating agents and poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase inhibitors (PARPis). While secondary mutations that restore a functional BRCA2 protein are detected in a fraction of cases that become drug resistant, the causes of resistance in other cases are poorly understood. Here we characterized clones derived from the BRCA2-mutant ovarian cancer line PEO1 by PARPi selection. Colony forming assays demonstrated cross-resistance of these clones to multiple PARPis, cisplatin and doxorubicin. Despite persistence of the signature 4965C>G (p.Y1655X) BRCA2 nonsense mutation, HR was restored in the resistant cells. Immunoprecipitation followed by immunoblotting or mass spectrometry demonstrated expression of low levels of BRCA2 protein, including peptides distal to the premature termination codon. Reporter assays demonstrated readthrough selective for the UAG stop codon in the resistant clones but not parental PEO1 cells. Mass spectrometry and immunoblotting provided evidence for readthrough of stop codons, particularly UAGs, in additional proteins in the resistant clones. BRCA2 gene interruption either 5' or 3' to the stop codon restored sensitivity of the resistant clones to PARPis and cisplatin, implicating the low level BRCA2 expression in resistance. Accordingly, the present results identify low level readthrough of nonsense codons as a potential mechanism of drug resistance that might need to be considered when assessing the impact of BRCA2 nonsense mutations. Overall design: RNAseq data of 15 samples (PEO1 parental or and veliparib resistant ABTR clones (n=4) ) in three independent experiments. PEO1 resistant clones (ABTR) were generated by continuous exposurse to veliparib (ABT888) 40 uM.