Cancer

Cell culture and mouse studies suggest inhibiting ROR1 or the long non-coding RNA (lncRNA) MAYA could help treat bone-metastatic breast cancer. In a bone-metastatic human breast cancer line, ROR1 knockout or MAYA knockdown decreased proliferation, migration and invasiveness compared with normal ROR1 and MAYA expression. In a xenograft model of bone-metastatic breast cancer, ROR1 knockout decreased the number of bone metastases and metastatic tumor burden. Also in the model, MAYA knockdown or a locked nucleic acid (LNA) targeting MAYA decreased metastatic tumor burden compared with normal MAYA expression or a scrambled LNA. Next steps include developing small molecule inhibitors of ROR1 and antisense inhibitors of MAYA.

Oncternal Therapeutics Inc. and University of California San Diego have cirmtuzumab (UC-961), a humanized IgG1 mAb specific for ROR1, in Phase I testing for refractory chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL)...