ADAM9 inhibitor for KRAS-driven pancreatic cancer

A small molecule inhibitor of the metalloproteinase and transcriptional repressor ADAM9 could help treat pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) by promoting expression of the autophagy receptor PAI1, and thus increasing lysosomal degradation of the oncogene KRAS, the most frequently mutated gene in PDAC.

ADAM9 protein expression was higher in pancreas samples from PDAC patients than samples from healthy individuals or pancreatitis patients. In bioinformatic analyses of The Cancer Genome Atlas, PDAC patients with high ADAM9 expression had lower overall survival than PDAC patients with low ADAM9 expression. ...