Perturbation biology models predict c-Myc as an effective co-target in RAF inhibitor resistant melanoma cells

Systematic prediction of cellular response to perturbations is a central challenge in biology, both for mechanistic explanations and for the design of effective therapeutic interventions. We addressed this challenge using a computational/experimental method, termed perturbation biology, which combines high-throughput (phospho)proteomic and phenotypic response profiles to targeted perturbations, prior information from signaling databases and network inference algorithms from statistical physics. The resulting network models are computationally executed to predict the effects of tens of thousands of untested perturbations. We report cell type-specific network models of signaling in RAF-inhibitor resistant melanoma cells based on data from 89 combinatorial perturbation conditions and 143 readouts per condition. Quantitative simulations predicted c-Myc as an effective co-target with BRAF or MEK. Experiments showed that co-targeting c-Myc, using the BET bromodomain inhibitor JQ1, and the RAF/MEK pathway, using kinase inhibitors is both effective and synergistic in this context. We propose these combinations as pre-clinical candidates to prevent or overcome RAF inhibitor resistance in melanoma.