Abstract
Acquired resistance to cancer drugs is common, also for modern targeted drugs like the Bruton tyrosine kinase (BTK) inhibitor ibrutinib, a new drug approved for the treatment of the highly aggressive and relapsing mantle cell lymphoma (MCL). The tumor microenvironment often impacts negatively on drug response. Here, we demonstrate that stromal cells protect MCL cells from ibrutinib-induced apoptosis and support MCL cell regrowth after drug removal by impairing ibrutinib-mediated downregulation of PI3K/AKT signaling. Importantly, the stromal cell-mediated ibrutinib resistance was overcome in vitro by inhibiting AKT activity using the PI3K catalytic p110α subunit-specific inhibitor BYL719. This was seen both for MCL cell lines and primary MCL cells. Furthermore, inhibition of p110α activity by BYL719 potentiated the ability of ibrutinib to inhibit MCL tumor growth in vivo in a mouse xenograft model. The stromal cell-mediated ibrutinib resistance was found to be due to a direct interaction with MCL cells and involves the integrin VLA-4, as disrupting stromal cell-MCL cell interaction using a VLA-4 blocking antibody abrogated the ibrutinib resistance. This suggests that combined treatment with ibrutinib and a p110α inhibitor, alternatively by disrupting stromal cell-MCL cell interaction, may be a promising therapeutic strategy to overcome stromal cell-mediated ibrutinib resistance in MCL. Mol Cancer Ther; 17(5); 1090-100. ©2018 AACR.