Enhancing the efficacy of B7-H3-targeting antibody-drug conjugate DS-7300a in TP53-deficient tumors by inducing ferroptosis

Immune checkpoint B7-H3 is an emerging target for immunotherapy. DS-7300a is an advanced B7-H3-targeting antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) warheaded with the topoisomerase I inhibitor DXd. DS-7300a has demonstrated clinical activity, but molecular biomarkers to predict its therapeutic response remain elusive. TP53 is one of the most mutated tumor suppressor genes across cancers, and effective therapies are urgently needed for TP53-deficient cancers. Using prostate cancer (PCa) as a model system, we reported that DS-7300a's anti-tumor efficacy is highly dependent on functional p53 in cancer cells, and TP53 defects confer resistance to DS-7300a. Mechanistically, we found that DS-7300a and its payload, DXd, induce DNA damage and activate the ATM/ATR/CHK signaling cascade, thereby stabilizing p53 and inducing a pro-apoptotic and senescence-associated transcriptome. In contrast, TP53-deficient cells fail to sense DXd-induced DNA damage, maintain a high proliferation rate, and exhibit low levels of apoptosis and senescence, thereby conferring resistance to DS-7300a. Ferroptosis is an iron-dependent form of regulated cell death triggered by lipid peroxidation, which is mechanistically and morphologically distinct from apoptosis. Interestingly, DS-7300a treatment elevates lipid peroxidation in TP53-deficient cancer cells and upregulates glutathione peroxidase 4 (GPX4), an antioxidant enzyme that mitigates lipid peroxidation. Using isogeneic xenograft models and a newly developed humanized B7-H3 PCa model, we demonstrated that inducing ferroptosis by pharmacological inhibition of GPX4 enhances DS-7300a's efficacy in TP53-deficient tumors. Our studies demonstrate that TP53 status dictates anti-tumor responses to DS-7300a, and ferroptosis induction represents a promising therapeutic approach to overcome resistance to DS-7300a in malignancies harboring TP53 defects.