Gene

Molecular biology

Alectinib

Biology

Crizotinib

Receptor

Mutation

Lung cancer

Cancer research

Malignant pleural effusion

Genetics

In vivo

Anaplastic lymphoma kinase

Tyrosine kinase

Mutant

Medicine

Pathology

Nature Communications

ALK gene rearrangement was observed in 3%–5% of non-small cell lung cancer patients, and multiple ALK-tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) have been sequentially used. Multiple ALK-TKI resistance mutations have been identified from the patients, and several compound mutations, such as I1171N + F1174I or I1171N + L1198H are resistant to all the approved ALK-TKIs. In this study, we found that gilteritinib has an inhibitory effect on ALK-TKI–resistant single mutants and I1171N compound mutants in vitro and in vivo. Surprisingly, EML4-ALK I1171N + F1174I compound mutant-expressing tumors were not completely shrunk but regrew within a short period of time after alectinib or lorlatinib treatment. However, the relapsed tumor was markedly shrunk after switching to the gilteritinib in vivo model. In addition, gilteritinib was effective against NTRK -rearranged cancers including entrectinib-resistant NTRK1 G667C-mutant and ROS1 fusion-positive cancer.

Gilteritinib overcomes lorlatinib resistance in ALK-rearranged cancer