Targeting RAS-driven human cancer cells with antibodies to upregulated and essential cell-surface proteins

Elife. 2018 Jan 23:7:e31098. doi: 10.7554/eLife.31098.

Abstract

While there have been tremendous efforts to target oncogenic RAS signaling from inside the cell, little effort has focused on the cell-surface. Here, we used quantitative surface proteomics to reveal a signature of proteins that are upregulated on cells transformed with KRASG12V, and driven by MAPK pathway signaling. We next generated a toolkit of recombinant antibodies to seven of these RAS-induced proteins. We found that five of these proteins are broadly distributed on cancer cell lines harboring RAS mutations. In parallel, a cell-surface CRISPRi screen identified integrin and Wnt signaling proteins as critical to RAS-transformed cells. We show that antibodies targeting CDCP1, a protein common to our proteomics and CRISPRi datasets, can be leveraged to deliver cytotoxic and immunotherapeutic payloads to RAS-transformed cancer cells and report for RAS signaling status in vivo. Taken together, this work presents a technological platform for attacking RAS from outside the cell.

Keywords: antibody engineering; biochemistry; cancer biology; cancer target discovery; human; mouse; oncogenic RAS.

Publication types

  • Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural
  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
  • Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.

MeSH terms

  • Antibodies / immunology
  • Antibodies / metabolism*
  • Antineoplastic Agents / metabolism*
  • Cell Line, Tumor
  • Drug Carriers / metabolism*
  • Humans
  • Immunologic Factors / immunology
  • Immunologic Factors / metabolism*
  • Membrane Proteins / immunology
  • Membrane Proteins / metabolism*
  • Molecular Targeted Therapy / methods*
  • Neoplasms / therapy*
  • ras Proteins / metabolism

Substances

  • Antibodies
  • Antineoplastic Agents
  • Drug Carriers
  • Immunologic Factors
  • Membrane Proteins
  • ras Proteins