Project description:Lung cancer is the worldwide leading cause of death from cancer. DNA methylation in gene promoter regions is a major mechanism of gene expression regulation that may promote tumorigenesis. However, whether clinically relevant subgroups based on DNA methylation patterns exist in lung cancer is not well studied. We performed whole-genome methylation analysis using 450K Illumina BeadArrays on 124 tumors including 83 adenocarcinomas, 23 squamous cell carcinomas, one adenosquamous cancer, five large cell carcinomas, nine large cell neuroendocrine carcinomas (LCNEC), three small cell carcinomas (SCLC) and 12 normal lung tissues. Unsupervised class discovery was performed to identify DNA methylation subgroups with clinicopathological and molecular features. Subgroups were validated in two independent NSCLC cohorts. Unsupervised analysis identified five DNA methylation subgroups (epitypes). One epitype was distinctly associated with neuroendocrine tumors (LCNEC and SCLC). For adenocarcinoma, in both discovery and validation cohorts, remaining four epitypes were associated with differences in clinicopathological and molecular features, including global hypomethylation, promoter hypermethylation, copy number alterations, expression of proliferation-associated genes, association with unsupervised and supervised gene expression phenotypes, KRAS, TP53, KEAP1, SMARCA4, and STK11 mutations, smoking history, and patient outcome. Based on a multicohort approach we conducted a comprehensive survey of genome-wide DNA methylation in lung cancer, identifying a distinct neuroendocrine epitype and four adenocarcinoma epitypes associated with molecular and clinicopathological characteristics, and patient outcome. Our results bring further understanding of the epigenetic characteristics and molecular diversity in lung cancer generally and in adenocarcinoma specifically. Genome-wide DNA methylation analysis of 124 lung carcinomas and 12 normal lung tissues using Illumina Human Methylation 450K v1.0 Beadchips.

Project description:Lung cancers are a heterogeneous group of diseases with respect to biology and clinical behavior. Currently, diagnosis and classification are based on histological morphology and immunohistological methods for discrimination between two main histologic groups: small cell lung cancer (SCLC) and non-small cell lung cancer which account for 20% and 80% of lung carcinomas, respectively. NSCLCs, which are divided into the three major subtypes adenocarcinoma, squamous cell carcinoma and dedifferentiated large cell carcinoma, show different characteristics such as the expression of certain keratins or production of mucin and lack of neuroedocrine differentiation. The molecular pathogenesis of lung cancer involves the accumulation of genetic und epigenetic alterations including the activation of proto-oncogenes and inactivation of tumor suppressor genes which are different for lung cancer subgroups. The development of microarray technologies opened up the possibility to quantify the expression of a large number of genes simultaneously in a given sample. There are several recent reports on expression profiling on lung cancers but the analysis interpretation of the results might be difficult because of the heterogeneity of cellular components. The methods used for sample selection and processing can have a strong influence on the expression values obtained through microarray profiling. Laser capture microdissection (LCM) provides higher specificity in the selection of target cells compared to traditional bulk tissue selection methods, but at an increased processing cost. Here we describe the use of an expression microarray study on NSCLC samples and surrounding tissue, comparing macroscopic lung tumor and tissue samples (“grind and bind”), versus tumor and alveolar compartment cells laser capture microdissected (LCM) from the same macroscopic lung samples. In this study, a set of 31 pairs and one non-paired sample of macroscopic tumor and non-tumor samples (10 pairs and 1 non-paired sample squamous-cell carcinoma, 19 pairs and one non-paired samples adenocarcinoma, 2 pairs adeno-squamous-cell carcinoma) was selected for bulk/macro sampling. Of these 31 pairs and 2 non-paired samples, 16 pairs plus 15 non paired samples were reanalyzed using laser capture microdissection (LCM) for sampling the cells (7 pairs and 3 non-paired samples squamous-cell carcinoma, 8 pairs and 11 non-paired samples adeno carcinomas, 1 pair and 1 non paired sample Adeno-squamous-cell carcinoma). For macroscopic samples, 50 to 80 µg of tissue was used to isolate total RNA. Gene expression profile was determined using Affymetrix Human Genome Gene 1.0 ST genechip. For the LCM samples, from representative slides histologically confirmed and mapped by a pathologist, approximately 1000 cells/sample were collected by LCM;. cDNA was amplified using Nugen WT-Ovation One-Direct amplification system. Here we describe the use of an expression microarray study on NSCLC samples and surrounding tissue, comparing macroscopic lung tumor and tissue samples (“grind and bind”), versus tumor and alveolar compartment cells laser capture microdissected (LCM) from the same macroscopic lung samples.

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Homo sapiens

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