Sabutoclax, a Novel Pan BCL2 Family Inhibitor, Sensitizes Dormant Blast Crisis Chronic Myeloid Leukemia Stem Cells to Dasatinib

Abstract 3739

Leukemia stem cells (LSC) represent a frequently dormant self-renewing population integral to the initiation, maintenance, and progression of human chromic myeloid leukemia (CML). The current standard of care dasatinib, a BCR-ABL targeted tyrosine kinase inhibitor (TKI), effectively eradicates the bulk of CML cells but frequently fails to affect the LSC population that is thought to drive CML relapse. Members in the BCL2 family are proteins that regulate apoptosis, 6 of which regulate cell survival. Each of these 6 members has a long and short isoform with opposing functions; generally, long isoforms promote cell survival while the short isoforms promote apoptosis. Previously, we demonstrated that upregulation of pro-survival BCL2 proteins in CML LSC contributes to chemotherapy resistance and LSC quiescence in protective hematopoietic niches. LSC found in different hematopoietic niches differ in their response to TKI treatment. Niche affects LSC cell cycle, either by maintaining quiescence or by promoting rapid cell cycling. Quiescent cells are a hurdle for traditional chemotherapy, which usually targets rapidly cycling cells, leaving the quiescent LSC untouched. We hypothesize that the inhibition of pro-survival BCL2 protein family members will sensitize LSC to dasatinib therapy and therefore prevent CML relapse.

We tested a novel pan pro-survival BCL2 family protein inhibitor, sabutoclax, delivered by intravenous injection either alone or in combination with oral dasatinib in immunodeficient RAG2⁻/_-gc⁻/- mice engrafted with BC CML patient samples. After treatment, LSC burden, self-renewal, and cell cycle status were quantified using FACS. Our results showed a reduction in the LSC burden in combination treated mice when compared to mice that received either drug alone. Mice treated with the combination regimen were found to have fewer quiescent human leukemic cells than their counterparts that received single agent treatments. Immunofluorescence staining confirmed the reduction of quiescent cells in the bone marrow after combination treatment when compared to single agent or vehicle treatments. We validated the molecular targets by using human specific splice isoform primers to perform RT-qPCR on FACS sorted LSC and showed a reduction in the BCL2 long to short isoform ratio in sabutoclax versus vehicle treated animals, indicating a skewing towards the pro-apoptotic splice variant. Together, these results indicate that the combination strategy with a pan pro-survival BCL2 family inhibitor and a tyrosine kinase inhibitor may be the foundation for a promising clinical strategy to effectively eliminate LSC and prevent cancer progression and relapse.