www.impactjournals.com/oncotarget/ Oncotarget, Vol. 6, No. 19 3′-Phosphoadenosine 5′-phosphosulfate synthase 1 (PAPSS1) knockdown sensitizes non-small cell lung cancer cells to DNA damaging agents Ada W. Y. Leung1,2, Wieslawa H. Dragowska1, Daniel Ricaurte1, Brian Kwok1, Veena Mathew3, Jeroen Roosendaal1,4, Amith Ahluwalia1, Corinna Warburton1, Janessa J. Laskin5,6, Peter C. Stirling3,7, Mohammed A. Qadir1, Marcel B. Bally1,2,8,9 1Experimental Therapeutics, BC Cancer Research Centre, Vancouver, BC, V5Z 1L3, Canada 2Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, V6T 2B5, Canada 3Terry Fox Laboratory, BC Cancer Research Centre, Vancouver, BC, V5Z 1L3, Canada 4Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Utrecht University, Utrecht, TB, 3508, The Netherlands 5Medical Oncology, BC Cancer Research Centre, Vancouver, BC, V5Z1L3, Canada 6Department of Medicine, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, V5Z 1M9, Canada 7Department of Medical Genetics, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC V6H 3N1, Canada 8Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, V6T 1Z3, Canada 9Centre for Drug Research and Development, Vancouver, BC, V6T 1Z3, Canada Correspondence to: Ada Leung e-mail:
[email protected] Keywords: PAPSS1, sensitization, non-small cell lung cancer, siRNA screen, DNA damage Received: November 19, 2014 Accepted: March 23, 2015 Published: April 11, 2015 ABSTRACT Standard treatment for advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) with no known driver mutation is platinum-based chemotherapy, which has a response rate of only 30–33%. Through an siRNA screen, 3′-phosphoadenosine 5′-phosphosulfate (PAPS) synthase 1 (PAPSS1), an enzyme that synthesizes the biologically active form of sulfate PAPS, was identified as a novel platinum-sensitizing target in NSCLC cells.