Loss of functional BAP1 augments sensitivity to TRAIL in cancer cells

Two patients with the same disease who receive the same treatment may respond in different ways. This variation often arises from differences in each patient’s genetic code. Genes encode proteins, and proteins are the targets of most medical drugs and thus determine the patient’s response to treatment. A major advance in the 21st century is that doctors recognise that patients can respond differently to the same treatment and now try to predict which patients will respond best to which drug – an approach known as personalised medicine. Cancer treatment has been at the forefront of personalised medicine because mutations in different genes underlie each different cancer. By analysing which mutations are present in a cancer, doctors can thus predict which drug (or combination of drugs) will be most effective. This approach has been used successfully in several cancers, including breast and lung cancer, leading to fewer patients being exposed to ineffective treatments and their associated side effects and costs. Mesothelioma is a cancer of the lining of the lung that is associated with exposure to the mineral asbestos. Current treatment options for mesothelioma are unfortunately limited and not very effective. No personalised treatments are currently in use and new treatment approaches are desperately needed. Kolluri, Alifrangis, Kumar, Ishii et al. set out to determine if any of the mutations commonly seen in mesothelioma affected how the cancer would respond to 94 anticancer drugs that are either in use or in development. In the laboratory, mesothelioma cells that have mutations in the gene that codes for a protein known as BRCA associated protein-1 (or BAP1 for short) were killed much more effectively by a drug known as TNF-related apoptosis-inducing ligand (TRAIL). The same link was seen in experiments with tumours of mesothelioma cells that had been transplanted into mice, and for fragments of mesothelioma tumours taken from patients. When Kolluri et al. studied why these tumours might be killed more effectively with TRAIL, they found that mutations in the gene for BAP1 result in a change in the levels of proteins that transmit the signal from the receptors targeted by the TRAIL drug. These findings may one day result in a new approach to treating patients with mesothelioma. But first, the next step would be to conduct a clinical trial of TRAIL in patients with mesothelioma and assess if those with tumours that have mutations in the gene for BAP1 do indeed respond better. If this proves to be the case, this would result in a new personalised treatment option for patients that suffer from this disease.