BioCentury
ARTICLE | Distillery Therapeutics

Therapeutics: PBX homeobox 1 (PBX1); Janus kinase-1 (JAK-1); JAK-2

October 6, 2016 7:00 AM UTC

Patient sample, cell culture and mouse studies suggest inhibiting PBX1 or JAK-2 could help treat chemotherapy-resistant ovarian cancer. In tissue samples from patients with high-grade serous ovarian cancer, levels of PBX1 were higher in chemotherapy-resistant tumors than in chemotherapy-sensitive tumors, and high PBX1 levels correlated with high JAK-2 levels. In two carboplatin-resistant ovarian cancer cell lines, siRNA targeting PBX1 increased sensitivity to carboplatin compared with scrambled siRNA. In two xenograft mouse models of carboplatin-resistant ovarian cancer, the combination of the JAK-1/JAK-2 inhibitor Jakafi ruxolitinib and carboplatin decreased tumor growth compared with either agent alone. Next steps could including testing inhibitors of PBX1 or JAK-2 in other chemotherapy-resistant ovarian cancer models...