Chemotherapy of HER2- and MDM2-Enriched Breast Cancer Subtypes Induces Homologous Recombination DNA Repair and Chemoresistance

Analyzing the TCGA breast cancer database, we discovered that patients with the HER2 cancer subtype and overexpression of MDM2 exhibited decreased post-treatment survival. Inhibition of MDM2 expression in the SKBR3 cell line (HER2 subtype) diminished the survival of cancer cells treated with doxorubicin, etoposide, and camptothecin. Moreover, we demonstrated that inhibition of MDM2 expression diminished DNA repair by homologous recombination (HR) and sensitized SKBR3 cells to a PARP inhibitor, olaparib. In H1299 (TP53−/−) cells treated with neocarzinostatin (NCS), overexpression of MDM2 WT or E3-dead MDM2 C478S variant stimulated the NCS-dependent phosphorylation of ATM, NBN, and BRCA1, proteins involved in HR DNA repair. However, overexpression of chaperone-dead MDM2 K454A variant diminished phosphorylation of these proteins as well as the HR DNA repair. Moreover, we demonstrated that, upon NCS treatment, MDM2 K454A interacted with NBN more efficiently than MDM2 WT and that MDM2 WT was degraded more efficiently than MDM2 K454A. Using a proliferation assay, we showed that overexpression of MDM2 WT, but not MDM2 K454A, led to acquisition of resistance to NCS. The presented results indicate that, following chemotherapy, MDM2 WT was released from MDM2-NBN complex and efficiently degraded, hence allowing extensive HR DNA repair leading to the acquisition of chemoresistance by cancer cells.