Functional Defects in the Fanconi Anemia Pathway in Pancreatic Cancer Cells

Biallelic BRCA2 -mutations can cause Fanconi anemia and are found in ∼7% of pancreatic cancers. Recently, several sequence changes in FANCC and FANCG were reported in pancreatic cancer. Functional defects in the Fanconi pathway can result in a marked hypersensitivity to interstrand crosslinking agents, such as mitomycin C. The functional implications of mutations in the Fanconi pathway in cancer have not been fully studied yet; these studies are needed to pave the way for clinical trials of treatment with crosslinking agents of Fanconi-defective cancers. The competence of the proximal Fanconi pathway was screened in 21 pancreatic cancer cell lines by an assay of Fancd2 monoubiquitination using a Fancd2 immunoblot. The pancreatic cancer cell lines Hs766T and PL11 were defective in Fancd2 monoubiquitination. In PL11, this defect led to the identification of a large homozygous deletion in FANCC , the first cancer cell line found to be FANCC -null. The Fanconi-defective cell lines Hs766T, PL11, and CAPAN1 were hypersensitive to the crosslinking agent mitomycin C and some to cis -platin, as measured by cell survival assays and G 2/M cell-cycle arrest. These results support the practical exploration of crosslinking agents for non-Fanconi anemia patients that have tumors defective in the Fanconi pathway.