Project description:In this study we report the neoantigen landscape, tumor mutational burden and tumor microenvironment of seven breast cancer patients, consisting of three Estrogen receptor (ER) positive and four Triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) subtypes.
Project description:Responses to immune checkpoint blockade (ICB) are variable among mismatch repair-deficient (MMRd) cancers. We completed a phase 2 clinical trial of the PD-1 inhibitor pembrolizumab in 24 patients with MMRd endometrial cancer (NCT02899793). Patients with mutational MMRd tumors (6 patients) had higher response rates and longer survival than those with epigenetic MMRd tumors (18 patients). Mutation burden was higher in tumors with mutational MMRd compared to epigenetic MMRd; however, within each category of MMRd, mutation burden was not associated with ICB response. Notably, JAK1 mutations did not confer resistance to pembrolizumab. Longitudinal single-cell RNA-seq of circulating immune cells revealed contrasting modes of anti-tumor immunity against mutational and epigenetic MMRd cancers. Whereas effector CD8+ T cell responses correlated with regression of mutational MMRd tumors, highly active CD16+ NK cells were associated with ICB-responsive epigenetic MMRd tumors. These data highlight the interplay between tumor-intrinsic and extrinsic factors that influence ICB response.
Project description:Tobacco use is an independent adverse prognostic feature in human papillomavirus (HPV)-associated oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma (OPSCC). Despite this, the biologic features associated with tobacco use have not been systematically investigated in this population. We sought to characterize the genomic and immunologic features of HPV(+) OPSCC associated with tobacco use and adverse oncologic outcomes. Whole exome sequencing of 47 primary HPV(+) OPSCC tumors was performed to investigate mutational differences associated with tobacco exposure. To characterize the tumor immune microenvironment (TIME), targeted mRNA hybridization was performed. Low expression of transcripts in a T cell-inflamed gene expression profile (TGEP) was associated with tobacco use at the time of diagnosis and lower overall and disease-free survival. Tobacco use was associated with an increased proportion of T>C substitutions and a lower proportion of mutational signatures typically observed in HPV(+) OPSCC tumors, but was not associated with increases in mutational burden or the rate of recurrent oncogenic mutations. Our work suggests that rather than increased mutational burden, tobacco’s primary and clinically relevant association in HPV(+) OPSCC is immunosuppression of the tumor immune microenvironment.
Project description:Mutations and expression changes of epigenetic modifiers are pervasive in human tumours, making epigenetic factors attractive as antitumour targets. However, the mutational landscape of tumours correlates with the chromatin state of their cell-of-origin, raising the concern that targeting epigenetic factors might alter the mutational burden and possibly aggravate disease progression. Nonetheless, a causal link between changes in chromatin in tissues and the mutational landscape of their cognate tumours has not yet been established. Here we show that increasing chromatin accessibility through a conditional deletion of the histone H3K9 methyltransferase G9a severely delays and reduces carcinogen-induced squamous tumour initiation and burden. Strikingly, after a prolonged latency, G9a-mutant mice develop highly aggressive tumours with an expanded cancer stem cell (SC) pool. Loss of G9a leads to extensive chromatin opening in the cells of origin of these tumours (i.e. epidermal and hair follicle SCs) . Although this does not alter the number of single-nucleotide variants, the type of substitutions, or the overall mutational topography, it significantly changes the mutational signatures (i.e. microcontext) in the tumor cells. G9a-depleted tumours also display pronounced genomic instability and a frequent accumulation of loss-of-function p53 mutations, compared to their wild-type counterparts. Our results therefore provide evidence for a causal link between chromatin modifications and mutational load in tumours and call for caution when assessing the long-term therapeutic benefits of inhibiting epigenetic factors.
Project description:Intratumor heterogeneity fosters the evolution of the genome leading to metastatic progress and therapy resistance . Here, we investigate the relative contribution of tumor aneuploidy and genomic heterogeneity involving CNAs and mutational events as prognostic and predictive determinants for disease recurrence in early-stage colon cancer patients. We combined SNP arrays, targeted next-generation sequencing, fluorescence in situ hybridization and inmunohistochemistry on a retrospective cohort of 84 untreated stage II colon cancer patients. We assessed the subclonality of copy-number alterations (CNAs) and mutations, CD8+ lymphocyte infiltration levels and their association with time to recurrence (TTR).
Project description:WES was used to analyze the mutational landscape of KPC and Panc02, two murine pancreatic cancer cell lines. As expected, a relatively low mutational burden was identified in KPC cells.
