A number of TP53-MDM2 inhibitors are currently under investigation as therapeutic agents in a variety of clinical trials in patients with TP53 wild type tumors. Not all wild type TP53 tumors are sensitive to such inhibitors. In an attempt to improve selection of patients with TP53 wild type tumors, an mRNA expression signature based on 13 TP53 transcriptional target genes was recently developed (Jeay et al. 2015). Careful reanalysis of TP53 status in the study validation data set of cancer cell lines considered to be TP53 wild type detected TP53 inactivating alterations in 23% of cell lines. The subsequent reanalysis of the remaining TP53 wild type cell lines clearly demonstrated that unfortunately the 13-gene signature cannot predict response to TP53-MDM2 inhibitor in TP53 wild type tumors.
Keywords: MDM2; TP53; computational biology; human; human biology; inhibitor sensitivity; medicine; pharmacogenomics; predictive signature; systems biology; translational oncology.