TDP2 confers resistance of tumor cells to Top2-poisons by repairing such covalent DNA-protein adducts, and its pharmacological inhibition could enhance the efficacy of Top2-poisons.
We discovered NSC111041, a selective inhibitor of TDP2, by optimizing a high throughput screening (HTS) assay for TDP2’s 5′-tyrosyl phosphodiesterase activity and subsequent validation studies.
We found that NSC111041 inhibits TDP2’s binding to DNA without getting intercalated into DNA and enhanced etoposide’s cytotoxicity synergistically in TDP2-expressing cells but not in TDP2 depleted cells.