Published online 6 October 2008
Haematologica, Vol 93, Issue 12, 1886-1889 doi:10.3324/haematol.13201
Copyright © 2008 by Ferrata Storti Foundation
Chromosomal instability syndromes are sensitive to poly ADP-ribose polymerase inhibitors
Terry J. Gaymes,
Sydney Shall,
Farzin Farzaneh,
Ghulam J. Mufti
Department of Haematological Medicine, Leukaemia Sciences Laboratories, The Rayne Institute, Kings College London, Denmark Hill Campus, London, UK
Correspondence: Ghulam J. Mufti, Department of Haematological Medicine, Kings College London, The Rayne Institute, 123 Coldharbour Lane, London SE5 9NU, UK. E-mail:ghulam.mufti{at}kcl.ac.uk

ABSTRACT
Poly ADP-ribose polymerase inhibitors have been shown to target
cells with homologous recombination DNA repair defects. We report
that poly ADP-ribose polymerase inhibitors induces apoptosis
in cells deficient in other key DNA repair components. Chromosomal
instability disorders, Fanconi Anemia and Blooms syndrome
have dysfunctional DNA repair and an increased likelihood of
leukemic transformation. PI addition to Fanconi Anemia and Blooms
syndrome cells resulted in significant apoptosis. Furthermore,
poly ADP-ribose polymerase inhibitors induced apoptosis in DNA
repair signaling defective
ATM–/– and
NBS–/– fibroblasts. Immunocytochemistry showed homologous recombination
was abrogated in
NBS–/– and
ATM–/– fibroblasts,
compromised in Fanconi anemia and normal in Blooms syndrome
cells in response to poly ADP-ribose polymerase inhibitors.
Strikingly, poly ADP-ribose polymerase inhibitors increases
non-homologous end joining repair activity, whilst non-homologous
end joining deficient cells are extremely sensitive to poly
ADP-ribose polymerase inhibitors. These data suggest poly ADP-ribose
polymerase inhibitors target cells with DNA repair and signaling
defects rather than solely defects in homologous recombination
improving the potential of poly ADP-ribose polymerase inhibitors
therapy in a wider range of cancers.
Key words: Poly ADP-ribose polymerase, leukemia, DNA repair.

Introduction
A major feature of hematologic malignancies such as myelodysplastic
syndrome (MDS) and acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is the presence
of marked chromosomal instability. Recent data has highlighted
the role of the double strand break (DSB) DNA damage signaling
network as a cause of chromosomal instability in hematologic
disorders.
1 In this regard, chromosome instability disorders
such as Blooms syndrome (BS) and Fanconi anemia (FA)
have an increased propensity to transform to MDS and AML.
1,2 The aberrant genes in these syndromes are components of the
homologous recombination (HR) pathway of DSB DNA repair. Additionally,
mutations in other DSB DNA repair signaling components such
as the ataxia telangiectasia mutated gene (
ATM), the Nijmegen
syndrome gene (
NBS1), and DNA ligase IV (DNL IV)
3–5 have
been identified in a percentage of leukemias.
Poly ADP-ribose polymerase (PARP) is a single strand break (SSB) sensing protein that catalyses the addition of ADP ribose to surrounding histones and other nuclear proteins.6 Inhibitors of PARP have been shown to selectively target cells with a dysfunctional homologous recombination (HR) pathway of DSB DNA repair.7 As a result of PARP inhibition, accumulation of single strand DNA breaks (SSB) leads to the replication fork collapse and conversion of SSB to double strand breaks DNA (DSB). The inability of repair defective cells such as BRCA2–/–, BRCA1–/– and ATM–/– mutants to repair the DSB DNA breaks would lead to cell death.8,9 In this report we show that PARP inhibitors induce cell death in chromosomal instability syndromes that have little or no defect in HR.

Design and Methods
PARP Inhibitor PJ34 (IC
50: 30 nM) was purchased from Calbiochem,
Nottingham, UK. The PARP inhibitor, KU-0058948 was donated by
Kudos Pharmaceuticals, Cambridge, UK. Mouse VC-8 (
BRCA2–/–)
and its isogenic control, V79-2 fibroblastic cell lines were
provided courtesy of Margaret Zdzienicka, Leiden. Mouse lines
were cultured in DMEM supplemented with 10% fetal bovine serum,
4 µM glutamine, 1% penicillin/streptomycin. Retrovirally
immortalized PD220Di (human
FANCD2–/–) and its isogenic
corrected control, PD220Di +D2 fibroblastic cell lines, GM05849;
human SV40 immortalized
ATM–/– fibroblasts, GM16088;
human SV40 immortalized
DNL IV–/– fibroblasts, GM06914;
human SV40 immortalized
FANCA–/– fibroblasts, GM15989;
SV40 immortalized NBS
–/– fibroblasts and GM00637(GM);
normal human SV40 immortalized fibroblasts were purchased from
the Coriell Institute for Medical Research, Camden, NJ, USA.
All human SV40 immortalized fibroblasts were derived from individuals
aged 12–20. Cells were cultured in EMEM supplemented with
10% fetal bovine serum, 4 mM glutamine, 1% penicillin/streptomycin.
SV40 immortalized PSNV4 (BS cells,
BLM–/–) and PSNF5
(
BLM corrected) cell lines respectively, were cultured as previously
described.
10

Immunofluorescence studies
Cells were immunostained and visualized as previously described.
11

Cell cycle analysis
Cells were prepared and analyzed as previously described.
11 Samples were analyzed using the FACScan flow cytometer (Becton
Dickinson, Franklin Lakes, NJ, USA). An apoptotic index was
derived by calculating the percentage sub-G
1 population events
as a fraction of the total sub-G
1 + G
1 population events.
Preparation of nuclear extracts was performed as described.12
End-ligation and misrepair assays were conducted as previously described.12 Densitometry readings were taken for all ligated plasmid products. End-ligation efficiency was defined as the sum of the densitometry readings for all ligated products divided by the sum of the densitometry readings for all ligated products plus unligated plasmid.
For the misrepair assay, 1 µg of EcoR1 linearized pUC18 was incubated with saturating levels of nuclear extract (10 µg) to promote plasmid recirculization. Plasmid and nuclear extract was incubated for 24 hrs. at 18°C before being used to transfect Escherichia coli strain DH5
. Primers around the EcoR1 site were designed to give a PCR product of 628bp corresponding to nucleotides 150–777bp. Colony PCR was performed on blue and white colonies to determine the size of the deletion.
Soft agar clonogenic cell survival assays were conducted as described.8 Log relative survival was calculated as clonogenic survival relative to the clonogenic survival in the cell line that produced the greatest number of colonies at that concentration of inhibitor. The maximum number of colonies at any given concentration for this cell line would be regarded as 100% and survival of clones in response to inhibitor for other cell lines would be made relative to this value.

Results and Discussion
We investigated the possibility that chromosomal instability
syndrome cells might show exaggerated hyper-sensitivity to PARP
inhibitors (PI) by adding PJ34 or KU-0058948 to a panel of exponentially
growing chromosomal instability cell lines.
FANCD2–/– (PD220Di) cells were cultured with 1 µM PJ34 and
Figure 1A shows that these cells displayed a reduced G
1 population, an
increased G
2/M population (indicative of stalled replication)
and an increased sub-G
1 population (apoptotic population) by
96 hrs. (
Online Supplementary Appendix Table 1). In contrast,
the corrected cell,
FANCD2+/+ (PD220Di + D2) shows only reduced
G
1, and increased G
2/M phase populations that return to a normal
cell cycle profile by 96 hrs. consistent with the appropriate
reactivation of replication. All chromosomal instability syndromes
studied demonstrated abnormal cell cycle profiles culminating
in an increased sub-G
1 population in contrast to isogenic controls
and control fibroblasts (
Online Supplementary Figure S1 and Table S1). The clonogenic survival assay (
Figure 1B,C) revealed
that FA cells (
FANCD2–/–, FANCA–/–),
BLM–/–, BRCA2–/–, ATM–/–, NBS1–/– and
DNL IV–/– cells showed great
sensitivity to PI compared to controls (
Figure 1 B,C).
BRCA2–/– cells were 10-fold more sensitive than
ATM–/– and
NBS1–/– cells that were in turn significantly more
sensitive to PI than
FANCD2–/–,
FANCA–/– or
DNL IV–/– cells (
p<0.01, n=3). Fanconi Anemia
(FA) is a rare chromosomal instability disorder characterized
by a hypersensitivity to DNA inter-strand cross-linking by alkylating
agents and an increased likelihood of leukemic transformation.
1 FA gene
FANCA has been previously identified as having reduced
expression
13 or point mutations
14 in a number of adult AML patients.
Mutations in
ATM, NBS1 and
DNL IV have also been previously
identified in leukemia.
3–5 The observation that the lack
of
FA, ATM, NBS1 and
DNL IV resulted in sensitivity to PARP
inhibition further suggests that PARP inhibition could be of
therapeutic benefit in a variety of hematologic malignancies
with dysfunctions in DNA damage response genes. Immunocytochemical
analysis was used to determine if PARP inhibitor sensitivity
was attributable to defective homologous recombination (HR)
DNA repair (
Figure 1D,E). HR factor, Rad51 locates to areas
of DNA damage forming nuclear foci, whilst phosphorylation of
histone variant H2AX is a marker of DSB DNA damage. In response
to adding 1 µM KU-0058948 for 24 hrs.,
BRCA2–/–, ATM–/–,
NBS1–/– cells showed no rad51
foci formation,
FANCD2–/–,
FANCA–/– showed reduced, but still prominent rad51 foci, whilst
BLM–/– and
DNL IV–/– cells demonstrated equivalent rad51
foci frequency compared to normal controls (
p<0.05, n=3).
The decreased but not absent rad51 foci formation in FA cells
suggests that even though FA proteins are intrinsically involved
in inter-strand crosslink repair and restart of DNA replication,
FA has a
mild HR defect as reported by other groups.
15,16 In
fact, FA sensitivity to PI could be attributable to cell cycle
checkpoint anomalies.
17 BLM–/– cells were also highly
sensitive to PI, but had normal rad51 foci formation in response
to PI challenge. It is suggested that the helicase action of
BLM protein is required to suppress HR following a stalled replication
fork by dissolving d-loops
18 and holliday intermediates,
19 and
promoting replication fork reversal and eventual restart of
replication. Thus BLM is an anti-HR factor and loss of BLM results
in increased HR and elevated sister chromatid exchange.
20 As
HR is functional in FA and BS cells, this suggests that absence
of HR is not an absolute requirement for PI sensitivity. Rather,
it is the absence of efficient and accurate repair of DSB that
is required. We investigated the possibility that PARP inhibitors
might influence the NHEJ DNA repair pathway.
Nuclear extracts were prepared from control and chromosomally
unstable fibroblast lines that had been incubated with 1 µM
KU-0058948 for 24 hrs.
Figure 2 A,B and
Online Supplementary Figure S1 show that end-joining efficiency is significantly
enhanced in PI treated cells (n=3,
p<0.001) compared with
untreated cells. However, in
ATM–/– and
NBS–/– cells that showed a significant reduction in end joining activity
compared to GM control cells there was no significant change
in end-ligation efficiency upon PI challenge. We next sought
to determine if PI administration is associated with an increased
frequency of errors of end-joining repair, since the NHEJ pathway
is characterized as an error-prone repair pathway. For the most
part the NHEJ pathway repairs DSB correctly, but it can also
introduce errors in the form of small DNA deletions of less
than 30bp during repair.
12
All cells were treated with 1 µM KU-0058948 for 24 hrs.,
nuclear extracts were prepared from treated cells and used in
a
lacZ plasmid reactivation assay;
Figure 2B,C show that PI
treated control cells demonstrated increased misrepair frequency
compared with untreated cells (GM, 5.2
vs. 7.6%;
BRCA2+/+ 2.2
vs. 3.3%;
BLM+/+, 5.2
vs. 8.3%) (n=3,
p<0.01). Significantly,
misrepair frequency is dramatically increased in chromosomally
unstable cell lines treated with PI (
BLM–/–, 8.7
vs. 15.9%;
BRCA2–/–, 6.1
vs. 11.9%;
ATM–/–, 10.1
vs. 16%;
NBS–/–, 8
vs. 14.2%). More than 50
white colonies per experiment were randomly chosen from the
test plates and were analyzed for plasmid deletions using PCR.
PI treated
BLM–/– cells elicited a much higher percentage
of large plasmid deletions (35 to 400 bp) compared to untreated
BLM–/– cells (30%
vs. 85%) (
Figure 2C). The NHEJ
pathway works complementary to HR, although many have considered
it the major pathway of DSB DNA damage repair.
10,21 However,
HR remains the pathway of choice at S-phase to assist in the
restoration of stalled replication forks. This is exemplified
by the extreme sensitivity of HR deficient cells such as
BRCA2–/– to PI challenge. Interestingly, we show that PI is able to increase
NHEJ activity, suggesting that NHEJ is activated as a back-up/salvage
mechanism in response to PI induced stalled replication. Addition
of PI increases the misrepair (error) frequency of the error-prone
NHEJ pathway, and this misrepair is further enhanced in HR defective
cells. As we and others have demonstrated erroneous NHEJ repair
of DSB in
BS and
FA cells, it is tempting to suggest that PI
sensitivity in chromosomal instability syndromes is partially
the result of increased genomic instability generated by an
over-stimulated NHEJ pathway compensating for the loss of HR
competency.
10,21 Thus, as cells deficient in NHEJ (
DNL IV–/–)
are highly sensitive to PI, it is possible that both loss of
NHEJ and NHEJ overactivity are required to some degree for PI
sensitivity. Indeed, deficiency of DNA-pK, another component
of NHEJ has also been shown to be required for PI sensitivity.
9 Our data propose that chromosomal instability disorders that
have DNA repair defects and increased propensity to transform
to leukemia and other cancers are potential targets for PI therapy.
Furthermore, the identification of mutations in other key DNA
repair genes such as the newly described oncogene
tip6022 increases
the therapeutic potential of PI in a wide range of cancers.

Footnotes
The online version of this article contains a supplementary
appendix.
Authorship and Disclosures
TG: designed research, performed and analyzed data and wrote paper; SS, FF: designed research and analyzed data; GM: designed research and analyzed data and contributed to the writing of the manuscript.
The authors reported no potential conflicts of interest.
Funding: this work is funded by the National Health Service (NHS).
Received for publication April 8, 2008.
Revision received July 10, 2008.
Accepted for publication July 15, 2008.

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