Page 19 - SDIR5 Abstract book 21 12 2021.

ADVANCES IN SOLID TUMOR RESEARCH

Drug repurposing in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma

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Jelena Grahovac , Marijana Pavlović , Marija Ostojić , Kristina Živić , Daniel Galun , Tatjana Srdić-Rajić
1 Institute for Oncology and Radiology of Serbia, Belgrade, Serbia
2 School of Medicine, University of Belgrade, Belgrade, Serbia
3 First Surgical Clinic, Clinical Center of Serbia, Belgrade, Serbia

The main objective of the REPANCAN project funded by the Science Fund of the Republic of Serbia was to
establish a new dedicated research team, that will address the urgent unmet need for new treatment
options for patients with pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC). PDAC is one of the most lethal types
of cancer in the world, with a 5-year survival rate of less than 10% and an increasing incidence rate.
Research on PDAC is limited and progress in patient survival has not been made in the last 40 years. To
circumvent the high costs and long development times for new oncological drugs, the REPANCAN project
uses the drug repurposing concept to establish a novel use for a class of nischarin (NISCH) receptor agonists
for treatment of PDAC. NISCH receptor itself has been shown to be a tumor suppressor in breast cancer
and its agonists hold promise for targeting several aspects of the PDAC pathology: cell invasiveness,
survival, metabolism, and the microenvironment. The REPANCAN project integrates the basic
bioinformatic, molecular and cellular research with the retrospective patient study. In so far, we have
examined the expression in PDAC patient tumor samples and in vitro model systems and found that NISCH
is expressed in both tumor cells and stroma and that is a prognostic marker. We examined the effects of
NISCH agonists on cell viability and migratory potential and found that it can limit PDAC cell survival and
invasive potential. Once completed, the REPANCAN project results will lay a ground for clinical evaluation
of NISCH agonists in PDAC patients.
Keywords: Pancreatic cancer, drug repurposing, nischarin

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