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Identification of a mutation in the extracellular domain of the Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor conferring cetuximab resistance in colorectal cancer

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A Corrigendum to this article was published on 07 September 2012

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Abstract

Antibodies against epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR)—cetuximab and panitumumab—are widely used to treat colorectal cancer. Unfortunately, patients eventually develop resistance to these agents. We describe an acquired EGFR ectodomain mutation (S492R) that prevents cetuximab binding and confers resistance to cetuximab. Cells with this mutation, however, retain binding to and are growth inhibited by panitumumab. Two of ten subjects studied here with disease progression after cetuximab treatment acquired this mutation. A subject with cetuximab resistance harboring the S492R mutation responded to treatment with panitumumab.

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Figure 1: Cetuximab-resistant cells are sensitive to the EGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitor gefitinib and the monoclonal antibody to EGFR panitumumab.
Figure 2: Cetuximab-resistant cells harbor a missense mutation (S492R) within the extracellular domain of EGFR.

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Change history

  • 06 July 2012

     In the version of this article initially published, due to an oversight by the authors, the first and last names of one the authors, Somasekar Seshagiri, were incorrectly transposed. The error has been corrected in the HTML and PDF versions of the article.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by Instituto de Salud Carlos III (ISCIII) -Subdirección General de Evaluación y Fomento de la Investigación (PS09/01491, PI08/0211 and PI09/1285) and Plan Nacional (PN) de Investigación Científica, Desarrollo e Innovación Tecnológica (I+D+I), iniciativa Ingenio 2010, programa Consolider and ISCIII/FEDER (RD06/0020/0109); PN de I+D+I 2008-20011 and DIUE Generalitat de Catalunya (2009 SGR 321) grants. We thank the Fundació Privada Cellex (Barcelona) for a generous donation to the Medical Oncology Service, Hospital del Mar. We thank the Tumor Bank of Pathology of Hospital del Mar (MARBiobanc), which is supported by FEDER (RD09/0076/00036), and Xarxa de Bancs de Tumors de Catalunya, which is sponsored by PDO (XBTC). We thank L. Roth and R. Cook for assistance with the EGFR binding studies, J. Guillory and J. Stinson for DNA sequencing, and J. Yélamos for key discussions.

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Authors

Contributions

C.M. designed the overall project. C.M., A.D., A.R., J.S., F.B. and J.A. designed experiments and analyzed data. A.D. performed cell-line and molecular experiments. B.B. and S.P. performed sequencing. M.C. prepared mutant proteins. M.S. performed the fluorescence in situ hybridization analysis. H.H. and A.M. performed the deep sequencing. S.M., S.P.T. and S. Seshagiri carried out the sequencing experiments and recombinant protein assays. M.I. collected and evaluated the tumor samples. S. Serrano supervised the tumor assays. C.M., M.G. and J.B. collected clinical information on the subjects. C.M., J.S., F.B. and J.A. wrote the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Clara Montagut or Joan Albanell.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Supplementary Figures 1–6, Supplementary Tables 1 and 2 and Supplementary Methods (PDF 533 kb)

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Montagut, C., Dalmases, A., Bellosillo, B. et al. Identification of a mutation in the extracellular domain of the Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor conferring cetuximab resistance in colorectal cancer. Nat Med 18, 221–223 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/nm.2609

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