Pseudo-senescence induced by palbociclib does not sensitise pleural mesothelioma cells to combinations with senolytics. (PubMed, Cell Death Dis)
The CDK4/6 inhibitors abemaciclib and palbociclib have demonstrated promising results in patient-derived xenograft models of PM...While some cells showed sensitivity to Bcl-xL inhibitors, neither navitoclax nor the specific Bcl-xL inhibitor A-1331852, nor other BH3 mimetics targeting Bcl-2 (venetoclax) or Mcl-1 (S63845) increased cell death when combined with palbociclib...Therefore, we employed inhibitors of these pathways, such as dasatinib, momelotinib or Torin-1, which did not synergise with palbociclib to kill the cells...The differential effects of palbociclib and cisplatin on permanent growth arrest were verified by sorting PM cells based on size and β-galactosidase activity. Our findings underscore the importance of understanding the nature of therapy-induced senescence when assessing the effectiveness of senolytics in different tumour models.