Abstract
Pancreatic cancer is one of the deadliest diseases largely due to difficulty in early diagnosis and the lack of effective treatments. KRAS is mutated in more than 90% of pancreatic cancer patients, and oncogenic KRAS contributes to pancreatic cancer tumorigenesis and progression. In this report, using an oncogenic KRASV12-based pancreatic cancer cell model, we developed a chemical genetic screen to identify small chemical inhibitors that selectively target pancreatic cancer cells with gain-of-function KRAS mutation. After screening ~3,200 compounds, we identified one compound that showed selective synthetic lethality against the KRASV12 transformed human pancreatic ductal epithelial cell over its isogenic parental cell line. These selective KRASV12-synthetic lethal compounds may serve as leads for subsequent development of clinically-effective treatments for pancreatic cancer.