Targeting USP8 causes synthetic lethality through degradation of FGFR2 in ARID1A-deficient ovarian clear cell carcinoma

Over half of ovarian clear cell carcinoma (OCCC) cases exhibit deficiencies in the ARID1A gene, a chromatin remodeling complex component. OCCC is resistant to chemotherapy and challenging to treat, necessitating new drug treatment strategies. This study used a publicly available dependency factor database to identify synthetic lethal targets for ARID1A-deficient cancer. The DepMap portal was used to identify genes on which ARID1A-deficient cancer cell lines are highly dependent. Our analysis limited to ovarian cancer cell lines only identified the deubiquitinating enzyme USP8 as a synthetic lethal target in ARID1A-deficient OCCC cancer cell lines and mouse xenograft models. In addition, USP8 inhibitors were more selective for ARID1A-deficient cells than existing candidate drugs used in promising clinical trials for ARID1A-deficient cancers. Suppression of USP8 in ARID1A-deficient cells led to degradation of FGFR2 via the proteasome. Deficiency of ARID1A causes abnormalities in the STAT3 pathway, which is one of the downstream pathways of FGFR2, but suppression of USP8 attenuates phosphorylation of STAT3 pT705 and induces apoptosis. Taken together, our data suggest that USP8 is a novel therapeutic target for ARID1A-deficient OCCC and that USP8 inhibitors suppress FGFR2-STAT3 signaling.