Dasatinib Inhibits the Growth of Neoplastic Human Eosinophils (EOL-1) through Targeting of FIP1L1-PDGFRα.

Chronic eosinophilic leukemia (CEL) is a myeloproliferative disorder characterized by molecular and/or cytogenetic evidence of monoclonality of eosinophils, sustained marked eosinophilia, and consecutive organ damage. In a majority of patients with CEL with or without associated mastocytosis, the transforming mutation FIP1L1-PDGFRα and the related CHIC2 deletion is found. The respective oncoprotein, FIP1L1-PDGFRα, is considered to play a major role in malignant cell growth in CEL. The tyrosine kinase (TK) inhibitor imatinib (STI571) has been described to counteract the TK activity of FIP1L1-PDGFRα in most patients, and has been introduced as a novel effective therapy in CEL. However, not all patients with CEL show a response to imatinib. Therefore, several attempts have been made to identify other TK inhibitors that counteract growth of neoplastic eosinophils in CEL. We provide evidence that dasatinib, a multi-targeted kinase inhibitor, blocks the growth and survival of EOL-1, an eosinophil leukemia cell line carrying FIP1L1-PDGFRα. The effects of dasatinib on proliferation of EOL-1 cells were dose-dependent, with an IC₅₀ of 0.5–1 nM, that was found to be in the same range compared to IC₅₀ values produced by imatinib. Dasatinib was also found to induce apoptosis in EOL-1 cells in a dose-dependent manner (IC-₅₀: 1–10 nM). The apoptosis-inducing effects of dasatinib on EOL-1 cells were demonstrable by light microscopy, flow cytometry, and by a Tunel assay. To further examine the mechanism of growth inhibition induced by dasatinib in neoplastic eosinophils, Western blot experiments were performed using antibodies directed against phosphorylated or total PDGFRα. In these experiments, we were able to show that dasatinib at 1 μM completely blocks the phosphorylation of FIP1L1-PDGFRα in EOL-1 cells. In summary, our data show that dasatinib inhibits the growth of leukemic eosinophils through targeting of the TK activity of the disease-related oncoprotein FIP1L1-PDGFRα. Based on this observation, dasatinib may be considered as a new interesting treatment option for patients with CEL. As dasatinib is also known to block various KIT mutants as well as wild type KIT, such therapy may also be of interest for patients who have systemic mastocytosis (SM) with an associated CEL (SM-CEL).