MEK inhibitor cobimetinib rescues a dRaf mutant lethal phenotype in Drosophila melanogaster

Since Drosophila melanogaster has proven to be a useful model system to study phenotypes of oncogenic mutations and to identify new anti-cancer drugs, we generated human BRAF^V600E homologous dRaf mutant (dRaf^A572E) Drosophila melanogaster strains to use these for characterisation of mutant phenotypes and exploit these phenotypes for drug testing. For mutant gene expression, the GAL4/UAS expression system was used. dRaf^A572E was expressed tissue-specific in the eye, epidermis, heart, wings, secretory glands and in the whole animal. Expression of dRaf ^A572E under the control of an eye-specific driver led to semi-lethality and a rough eye phenotype. The vast majority of other tissue-specific and ubiquitous drivers led to a lethal phenotype only. The rough eye phenotype was used to test BRAF inhibitor vemurafenib and MEK1/2 inhibitor cobimetinib. There was no phenotype rescue by this treatment. However, a significant rescue of the lethal phenotype was observed under a gut-specific driver. Here, MEK1/2 inhibitor cobimetinib rescued Drosophila larvae to reach pupal stage in 37% of cases as compared to 1% in control experiments. Taken together, the BRAF^V600E homolog dRaf ^A572E exerts mostly lethal effects in Drosophila. Gut-specific dRaf ^A572E expression might in future be developed further for drug testing.