Triple Targeting of Breast Tumors Driven by Hormonal Receptors and HER2

Abstract

Breast cancers that express hormonal receptors (HR) and HER2 display resistance to targeted therapy. Tumor-promotional signaling from the HER2 and estrogen receptor (ER) pathways converges at the cyclin D1 and cyclin-dependent kinases (CDK) 4 and 6 complex, which drives cell-cycle progression and development of therapeutic resistance. Therefore, we hypothesized that co-targeting of ER, HER2, and CDK4/6 may result in improved tumoricidal activity and suppress drug-resistant subclones that arise on therapy. We tested the activity of the triple targeted combination therapy with tucatinib (HER2 small-molecule inhibitor), palbociclib (CKD4/6 inhibitor), and fulvestrant (selective ER degrader) in HRþ/HER2þ human breast tumor cell lines and xenograft models. In addition, we evaluated whether triple targeted combination prevents growth of tucatinib or palbociclib-resistant subclones in vitro and in vivo. Triple targeted combination significantly reduced HRþ/HER2þ tumor cell viability, clonogenic survival, and in vivo growth. Moreover, survival of HRþ/HER2þ cells that were resistant to the third drug in the regimen was reduced by the other two drugs in combination. We propose that a targeted triple combination approach will be clinically effective in the treatment of otherwise drug-resistant tumors, inducing robust responses in patients.