Repurposing FDA-approved drugs for the treatment of malignant peripheral nerve sheath tumors

Malignant peripheral nerve sheath tumors (MPNSTs) are aggressive soft tissue sarcomas developed from Schwann cell lineage. They account for up to 10% of all soft tissue sarcomas. Although there is an unmet need for new therapeutic agents for MPNSTs, to date there have been few transcriptomic analyses of this tumor type. We studied FDA approved drugs for MPNST treatment and compared their transcriptomic changes in cell lines before and after treatment. We demonstrated that Fludarabine treated NF1 MPNST cells exhibited altered signaling pathways such as the upregulation of the Wnt/Ca+ pathway and downregulation of the hedgehog and hypoxia signaling pathways in the Ingenuity Pathway Analysis (IPA) and Gene Set Enrichment Analysis (GSEA) analysis. The combined Colchicine and Fludarabine treatment enhanced the cytotoxicity of sporadic MPNST cells through altered signaling pathways, including increased Wnt/ß-catenin pathway and others. The transcriptomic analysis comparing NF1/sporadic MPNST cells and normal Schwann cells indicated that NF1 MPNST cells had more splicing events, fewer single nucleotide variants, and induced RNA expression than sporadic MPNST cells. In summary, we identified a transcriptomic differences between MPNSTs and Schwann cells, between sporadic MPNST cells and NF1 MPNST cells, and between drug treated MPNST cells and vehicle treated cells. Overall design: The overnight cultured cells (~2 x 10^6 per 100 mm dish) were exposed with various concentrations of a drug(s) or vehicle for 24 h. Total 20 samples were analyzed; 2 replicates each group, respectively.