The EGFR mutation status affects the relative biological effectiveness of carbon-ion beams in non-small cell lung carcinoma cells

Napapat Amornwichet, Takahiro Oike, Atsushi Shibata, Chaitanya S. Nirodi, Hideaki Ogiwara, Haruhiko Makino, Yuka Kimura, Yuka Hirota, Mayu Isono, Yukari Yoshida, Tatsuya Ohno, Takashi Kohno, Takashi Nakano

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Carbon-ion radiotherapy (CIRT) holds promise to treat inoperable locally-advanced non-small cell lung carcinoma (NSCLC), a disease poorly controlled by standard chemoradiotherapy using X-rays. Since CIRT is an extremely limited medical resource, selection of NSCLC patients likely to benefit from it is important; however, biological predictors of response to CIRT are ill-defined. The present study investigated the association between the mutational status of EGFR and KRAS, driver genes frequently mutated in NSCLC, and the relative biological effectiveness (RBE) of carbon-ion beams over X-rays. The assessment of 15 NSCLC lines of different EGFR/KRAS mutational status and that of isogenic NSCLC lines expressing wild-type or mutant EGFR revealed that EGFR-mutant NSCLC cells, but not KRAS-mutant cells, show low RBE. This was attributable to (i) the high X-ray sensitivity of EGFR-mutant cells, since EGFR mutation is associated with a defect in non-homologous end joining, a major pathway for DNA double-strand break (DSB) repair, and (ii) the strong cell-killing effect of carbon-ion beams due to poor repair of carbon-ion beam-induced DSBs regardless of EGFR mutation status. These data highlight the potential of EGFR mutation status as a predictor of response to CIRT, i.e., CIRT may show a high therapeutic index in EGFR mutation-negative NSCLC.

Original languageEnglish
Article number11305
JournalScientific reports
Volume5
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2015 Jun 11
Externally publishedYes

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • General

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