Abstract 5487: Functional analysis of rare dihydropyrimidine dehydrogenase variants relevant to 5-fluorouracil toxicity

Abstract

Abstract 5-Fluorouracil (5-FU) is a cornerstone drug for the treatment of several aggressive tumors; however, adverse 5-FU toxicity contributes to approximately 1,300 deaths annually in the U.S. While three genetic variations in dihydropyrimidine dehydrogenase (DPD; DPYD gene) are well-established predictors of toxicity (i.e., *2A, I560S, D949V), the contributions of additional reported missense DPYD variants (>130) have not been adequately evaluated in clinical studies. Our lab has previously developed methods to study DPYD variants for potential clinical relevance to 5-FU toxicity using in vitro and cellular approaches (see Offer et al. Cancer Research 2013 & 2014). In the current study, we measured the in vitro enzyme activity of 47 uncharacterized missense variants that have been previously reported in dbSNP and NHLBI ESP databases. Additionally, we assessed the impact of these variants on 5-FU sensitivity in multiple transgenic human cellular models using real-time cellular analysis. Approximately one-third of the studied variants showed significantly reduced enzyme activity compared to wild type. Of the DPD-deficient variants identified in this study, 8 were profoundly deficient (<12.5% of “wildtype” activity), with enzyme activities similar to *2A. Two deficient variants showed modest reductions in enzyme activity (12.5-25% activity), similar to I560S. The remaining 5 deleterious variants exhibited mild deficiency (>25% activity, but significantly lower than “wildtype”), similar to D949V. Cellular sensitivity to 5-FU for cells expressing these variants paralleled the in vitro enzyme activity results, with deleterious variants showing reduced tolerance to 5-FU relative to cells transgenic for wildtype DPD. These trends were observed in multiple cell lines derived from various tissues and tumor types. Overall, our results add to the growing database of deleterious DPYD variations. Many of these variants have been observed primarily in non-Caucasian racial groups, consistent with our previous reports. These data suggest that the deleterious variants classified in this study may be important predictors of 5-FU toxicity, particularly in individuals of non-Caucasian ancestry. Additionally, these data suggest that genetic testing for rare variants may improve the success of predictive tests for 5-FU toxicity. Finally, this study suggests that in vitro and cellular models may be important pharmacogenomic methods to rapidly characterize variants of potential relevance in additional drug-gene pathways. Citation Format: Shikshya Shrestha, Steve Offer, Robert B. Diasio. Functional analysis of rare dihydropyrimidine dehydrogenase variants relevant to 5-fluorouracil toxicity. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 106th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2015 Apr 18-22; Philadelphia, PA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2015;75(15 Suppl):Abstract nr 5487. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2015-5487