Abstract 4861: Initial preclinical evaluation of a novel inhibitor of mitochondrial metabolism against prostate cancer

CPI-613 is a novel inhibitor of mitochondrial metabolism that has recently shown promise in early stage clinical trials for pancreatic cancer, lymphoma, and leukemia. It is a lipoate analogue that selectively inhibits pyruvate dehydrogenase (PDH) and alpha-ketoglutarate dehydrogenase (KGDH) complexes in tumor cells (reviewed in Exp.Rev.Clin.Pharma. 7, 837). Since these two enzymes control the vast majority of carbon flow into the tricarboxylic acid (TCA) cycle, CPI-613 significantly inhibits mitochondrial metabolism. Importantly, it has demonstrated a favorable safety profile in clinical trials, presumably due to its documented selectivity to cancer metabolism. Early phase clinical trials with CPI-613 have demonstrated very promising clinical responses in pancreatic cancer, leukemia, and lymphoma when used in combination with standard chemotherapy. For example, in a recently published Phase I clinical trial in 18 patients with Stage 4 pancreatic cancer in combination with a modified FOLFIRINOX regiment, three (17%) had a complete response, eight (44%) had a partial response, three (17%) had stable disease, and four (22%) had progressive disease. Since altered cancer metabolism is a hallmark of cancer in general, we hypothesized that CPI-613 should have efficacy in other cancers, including prostate cancer, which is the second most common malignancy in men that affects over 160,000 men in the U.S annually. To test our hypothesis, we treated prostate cancer cell lines with CPI-613 in vitro and in vivo in a preclinical murine flank model. We found that CPI-613 was highly effective at killing prostate cancer cells in vitro, which was similar to its previously published potency in pancreatic cancer cells. Furthermore, we found in vitro therapeutic synergy with docotaxel, a standard of care treatment of advanced prostate cancer. We therefore tested CPI-613 in a preclinical Pc-3 flank model of androgen-resistant prostate cancer. Groups of mice (n=8) were treated 2-3 times per a week for 5 weeks with 2.5mg/kg of CPI-613, 10mg/kg of CPI-613 and control saline after tumors reached approximately 40mm3. CPI-613 was formulated in the same manner as it was for clinical trials. Both groups of mice treated with CPI-613 demonstrated a significant decrease in tumor growth without any toxicity. There was no observed difference between doses, which may be due to having crossed the threshold of drug uptake and concentration required in the mitochondria for a response. Furthermore, there was a significant increase in survival between treated groups and the control group, again without a dose effect. These results for the first time indicate biological activity of CPI-613 both in vitro and in vivo against prostate cancer and therefore warrants further investigation in representative preclinical prostate cancer models and in combination with standard-of-care therapies. Citation Format: Kiran K. Solingapuram Sai, Anirudh Sattiraju, Zuzana Zachar, Michael S. Dahan, Robert Shorr, Timothy S. Pardee, Paul M. Bingham, Akiva Mintz. Initial preclinical evaluation of a novel inhibitor of mitochondrial metabolism against prostate cancer [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2018; 2018 Apr 14-18; Chicago, IL. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2018;78(13 Suppl):Abstract nr 4861.