MYC Drives Progression of Small Cell Lung Cancer to a Variant Neuroendocrine Subtype with Vulnerability to Aurora Kinase Inhibition

Menée à l'aide d'un modèle murin de cancer du poumon à petites cellules, cette étude met en évidence des mécanismes par lesquels une surexpression du gène MYC favorise la progression de la tumeur en un sous-type de nature neuroendocrine, puis suggère l'intérêt d'un traitement combinant une chimiothérapie et un inhibiteur de kinase Aurora

Résumé en anglais

Loss of the tumor suppressors RB1 and TP53 and MYC amplification are frequent oncogenic events in small cell lung cancer (SCLC). We show that Myc expression cooperates with Rb1 and Trp53 loss in the mouse lung to promote aggressive, highly metastatic tumors, that are initially sensitive to chemotherapy followed by relapse, similar to human SCLC. Importantly, MYC drives a neuroendocrine-low ?variant? subset of SCLC with high NEUROD1 expression corresponding to transcriptional profiles of human SCLC. Targeted drug screening reveals that SCLC with high MYC expression is vulnerable to Aurora kinase inhibition, which, combined with chemotherapy, strongly suppresses tumor progression and increases survival. These data identify molecular features for patient stratification and uncover a potential targeted treatment approach for MYC-driven SCLC.