Quinacrine overcomes resistance to erlotinib by inhibiting FACT, NF-κB, and cell-cycle progression in non-small cell lung cancer.

Erlotinib is a tyrosine kinase inhibitor approved for the treatment of patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). In these patients, erlotinib prolongs survival but its benefit remains modest because many tumors express wild-type (wt) EGFR or develop a second-site EGFR mutation. To test drug combinations that could improve the efficacy of erlotinib, we combined erlotinib with quinacrine, which inhibits the FACT (facilitates chromatin transcription) complex that is required for NF-κB transcriptional activity.