Recurrent cancer-associated ERBB4 mutations are transforming and confer resistance to targeted therapies

Receptor tyrosine kinase ERBB4 (HER4) is frequently mutated in human cancer, andERBB4mutations have been identified in patients relapsing on targeted therapy. Here, we addressed the functional consequences of recurrent cancer-associatedERBB4mutations that are located at regions important for dimer interactions and/or are paralogous to known oncogenic hotspot mutations in otherERBBgenes. Eleven out of 18 analyzed mutations were transforming in cell models, thus suggesting oncogenic potential for more than half of the recurrent ERBB4 mutations. More detailed analyses of the most potent mutations, S303F, E452K and L798R, showed that they are activating, can co-operate with other ERBB receptors and are targetable with clinically available second-generation pan-ERBB inhibitors neratinib, afatinib and dacomitinib. Furthermore, the S303F mutation, together with a previously identified activating ERBB4 mutation, E715K, promoted resistance to third-generation EGFR inhibitor osimertinib in EGFR-mutant lung cancer modelin vitroandin vivo. Together, these results are expected to facilitate clinical interpretation of the most recurrent cancer-associatedERBB4mutations. The findings provide rationale for testing the efficacy of clinically used pan-ERBB inhibitors in patients harboring driverERBB4mutations both in the treatment-naïve setting, and upon development of resistance to targeted agents.