Personalized Medicine for Meningiomas: Drug Screening on Tumor Organoids Exposes Therapeutic Vulnerabilities to HDAC1/2i Panobinostat

Managing aggressive meningiomas remains challenging due to limited treatment options besides surgical tumor removal and radiotherapy. To identify novel therapies for aggressive meningiomas, we established a multi-step drug screening workflow, focusing on targetable genes obtained from transcriptome data of highly aggressive grade 3 meningiomas. In vitro screening of 107 targeted drugs identified nine effective inhibitors. To study these drugs in a more natural environment, we established a standardized patient-derived tumor organoid (TO) model preserving accurately the original tissue's genotype and phenotype. Individual drug responses were assessed in TOs from 60 molecularly characterized meningioma cases. Especially the FDA-approved epigenetic drug panobinostat demonstrated high antimeningioma efficacy in 70% of TOs, mediated through HDAC1/2 inhibition. In addition, treatment in an orthotopic in vivo model revealed a significantly improved survival. In a heavily pretreated patient suffering from an anaplastic meningioma, oral panobinostat treatment could delay the tumor growth rate. In search of the molecular mechanism underlying a potential intrinsic panobinostat resistance, we identified upregulation of the HDAC8-TGFβ-EMT axis in the TO model and subsequent HDAC8 depletion substantially increased the sensitivity to panobinostat. These data highlight the utility of personalized drug screenings on TOs to identify suitable drug targets and inhibitors for a more effective treatment of clinically aggressive meningiomas and help to advance our understanding of counteracting resistance mechanisms.