Dacomitinib, a pan-inhibitor of ErbB receptors, suppresses growth and invasive capacity of chemoresistant ovarian carcinoma cells

Epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC) is the most lethal gynaecological malignancy worldwide. Development of chemoresistance and peritoneal dissemination of EOC cells are the major reasons for low survival rate. Targeting signal transduction pathways which promote therapy resistance and metastatic dissemination is the key to successful treatment. Members of the ErbB family of receptors are over-expressed in EOC and play key roles in chemoresistance and invasiveness. Despite this, single-targeted ErbB inhibitors have demonstrated limited activity in chemoresistant EOC. In this report, we show that dacomitinib, a pan-ErbB receptor inhibitor, diminished growth, clonogenic potential, anoikis resistance and induced apoptotic cell death in therapy-resistant EOC cells. Dacominitib inhibited PLK1-FOXM1 signalling pathway and its down-stream targets Aurora kinase B and survivin. Moreover, dacomitinib attenuated migration and invasion of the EOC cells and reduced expression of epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT) markers ZEB1, ZEB2 and CDH2 (which encodes N-cadherin). Conversely, the anti-tumour activity of single-targeted ErbB agents including cetuximab (a ligand-blocking anti-EGFR mAb), transtuzumab (anti-HER2 mAb), H3.105.5 (anti-HER3 mAb) and erlotinib (EGFR small-molecule tyrosine kinase inhibitor) were marginal. Our results provide a rationale for further investigation on the therapeutic potential of dacomitinib in treatment of the chemoresistant EOC.