Pharmacological inhibition of the cell cycle regulatory kinase Wee1 represents a promising strategy to eliminate cancer cells. Wee1 inhibitors cooperate with chemotherapeutics, e. g. nucleoside analogues, pushing malignant cells from S phase towards premature mitosis and death. However, considerable toxicities are observed in preclinical and clinical trials. A high proportion of tumor cells can be distinguished from all other cells of a patient's body by inactivating mutations in the tumor suppressor p53. Here we set out to develop an approach for the selective protection of p53-proficient cells against the cytotoxic effects of Wee1 inhibitors. We pretreated such cells with Nutlin-3a, a prototype inhibitor of the p53-antagonist Mdm2. The resulting transient cell cycle arrest effectively increased the survival of cells that were subsequently treated with combinations of the Wee1 inhibitor MK-1775 and/or the nucleoside analogue gemcitabine. In this constellation, Nutlin-3a reduced caspase activation and diminished the phosphorylation of Histone 2AX, an indicator of the DNA damage response. Both effects were strictly dependent on the presence of p53. Moreover, Nutlin pre-treatment reduced the fraction of cells that were undergoing premature mitosis in response to Wee1 inhibition. We conclude that the pre-activation of p53 through Mdm2 antagonists serves as a viable option to selectively protect p53-proficient cells against the cytotoxic effects of Wee1 inhibitors, especially when combined with a nucleoside analogue. Thus, Mdm2 antagonists might prove useful to avoid unwanted side effects of Wee1 inhibitors. On the other hand, when a tumor contains wild type p53, care should be taken not to induce its activity before applying Wee1 inhibitors.
Keywords: Mdm2; Wee1; gemcitabine; p53; premature mitosis.