The Tie-2 antagonist rebastinib reduces ovarian cancer growth in a syngeneic murine model

Background: The receptor tyrosine kinase TIE2 and its ligands, angiopoietins (ANGPTs), promote angiogenesis. In addition to expression on vascular endothelial cells, TIE2 is expressed on M2-like pro-tumorigenic macrophages. Thus, the TIE2 inhibitor rebastinib was developed as a potential therapy to address multiple cancers. The objective of this study was to determine the effects of rebastinib alone and combined with chemotherapy in a syngeneic murine model of ovarian cancer. RNA sequencing was performed on ID8 cells and murine peritoneal macrophage cells (PMJ2R) after 6h treatment with 5 nM rebastinib, chemotherapy, or rebastinib plus chemotherapy.