scholarly journals Deep learning-based cross-classifications reveal conserved spatial behaviors within tumor histological images

2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Javad Noorbakhsh ◽  
Saman Farahmand ◽  
Ali Foroughi pour ◽  
Sandeep Namburi ◽  
Dennis Caruana ◽  
...  

AbstractHistopathological images are a rich but incompletely explored data type for studying cancer. Manual inspection is time consuming, making it challenging to use for image data mining. Here we show that convolutional neural networks (CNNs) can be systematically applied across cancer types, enabling comparisons to reveal shared spatial behaviors. We develop CNN architectures to analyze 27,815 hematoxylin and eosin scanned images from The Cancer Genome Atlas for tumor/normal, cancer subtype, and mutation classification. Our CNNs are able to classify TCGA pathologist-annotated tumor/normal status of whole slide images (WSIs) in 19 cancer types with consistently high AUCs (0.995 ± 0.008), as well as subtypes with lower but significant accuracy (AUC 0.87 ± 0.1). Remarkably, tumor/normal CNNs trained on one tissue are effective in others (AUC 0.88 ± 0.11), with classifier relationships also recapitulating known adenocarcinoma, carcinoma, and developmental biology. Moreover, classifier comparisons reveal intra-slide spatial similarities, with an average tile-level correlation of 0.45 ± 0.16 between classifier pairs. Breast cancers, bladder cancers, and uterine cancers have spatial patterns that are particularly easy to detect, suggesting these cancers can be canonical types for image analysis. Patterns for TP53 mutations can also be detected, with WSI self- and cross-tissue AUCs ranging from 0.65-0.80. Finally, we comparatively evaluate CNNs on 170 breast and colon cancer images with pathologist-annotated nuclei, finding that both cellular and intercellular regions contribute to CNN accuracy. These results demonstrate the power of CNNs not only for histopathological classification, but also for cross-comparisons to reveal conserved spatial behaviors across tumors.

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Javad Noorbakhsh ◽  
Saman Farahmand ◽  
Ali Foroughi pour ◽  
Sandeep Namburi ◽  
Dennis Caruana ◽  
...  

AbstractHistopathological images are a rich but incompletely explored data type for studying cancer. Manual inspection is time consuming, making it challenging to use for image data mining. Here we show that convolutional neural networks (CNNs) can be systematically applied across cancer types, enabling comparisons to reveal shared spatial behaviors. We develop CNN architectures to analyze 27,815 hematoxylin and eosin slides from The Cancer Genome Atlas for tumor/normal, cancer subtype, and mutation classification. Our CNNs are able to classify tumor/normal status of whole slide images (WSIs) in 19 cancer types with consistently high AUCs (0.995±0.008), as well as subtypes with lower but significant accuracy (AUC 0.87±0.1). Remarkably, tumor/normal CNNs trained on one tissue are effective in others (AUC 0.88±0.11), with classifier relationships also recapitulating known adenocarcinoma, carcinoma, and developmental biology. Moreover, classifier comparisons reveal intra-slide spatial similarities, with average tile-level correlation of 0.45±0.16 between classifier pairs. Breast cancers, bladder cancers, and uterine cancers have spatial patterns that are particularly easy to detect, suggesting these cancers can be canonical types for image analysis. Patterns for TP53 mutations can also be detected, with WSI self- and cross-tissue AUCs ranging from 0.65-0.80. Finally, we comparatively evaluate CNNs on 170 breast and colon cancer images with pathologist-annotated nuclei, finding that both cellular and intercellular regions contribute to CNN accuracy. These results demonstrate the power of CNNs not only for histopathological classification, but also for cross-comparisons to reveal conserved spatial biology.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daisuke Komura ◽  
Akihiro Kawabe ◽  
Keisuke Fukuta ◽  
Kyohei Sano ◽  
Toshikazu Umezaki ◽  
...  

SummaryCancer histological images contain rich biological and clinical information, but quantitative representation can be problematic and has prevented direct comparison and accumulation of large-scale datasets. Here we show that deep texture representations (DTRs) produced by a bilinear Convolutional Neural Network, express cancer morphology well in an unsupervised manner, and work as a universal encoder for cancer histology. DTRs are useful for content-based image retrieval, enabling quick retrieval of histologically similar images from optimally area selected datasets of 7,175 cases from The Cancer Genome Atlas. Via comprehensive comparison with driver and clinically actionable gene mutations, we have successfully predicted 309 combinations of genomic features and cancer types from hematoxylin and eosin-stained images at high accuracy (AUC > 0.70 and q < 0.02). With its mounting capabilities on accessible devices such as smartphones, DTR-based encoding for cancer histology has a potentially strong impact on global equalization for cancer diagnosis and targeted therapies.


2019 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-46 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eva Baxter ◽  
Karolina Windloch ◽  
Greg Kelly ◽  
Jason S Lee ◽  
Frank Gannon ◽  
...  

Up to 80% of endometrial and breast cancers express oestrogen receptor alpha (ERα). Unlike breast cancer, anti-oestrogen therapy has had limited success in endometrial cancer, raising the possibility that oestrogen has different effects in both cancers. We investigated the role of oestrogen in endometrial and breast cancers using data from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) in conjunction with cell line studies. Using phosphorylation of ERα (ERα-pSer118) as a marker of transcriptional activation of ERα in TCGA datasets, we found that genes associated with ERα-pSer118 were predominantly unique between tumour types and have distinct regulators. We present data on the alternative and novel roles played by SMAD3, CREB-pSer133 and particularly XBP1 in oestrogen signalling in endometrial and breast cancer.


2020 ◽  
Vol 21 (17) ◽  
pp. 6087
Author(s):  
Yunzhen Wei ◽  
Limeng Zhou ◽  
Yingzhang Huang ◽  
Dianjing Guo

Long noncoding RNA (lncRNA)/microRNA(miRNA)/mRNA triplets contribute to cancer biology. However, identifying significative triplets remains a major challenge for cancer research. The dynamic changes among factors of the triplets have been less understood. Here, by integrating target information and expression datasets, we proposed a novel computational framework to identify the triplets termed as “lncRNA-perturbated triplets”. We applied the framework to five cancer datasets in The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) project and identified 109 triplets. We showed that the paired miRNAs and mRNAs were widely perturbated by lncRNAs in different cancer types. LncRNA perturbators and lncRNA-perturbated mRNAs showed significantly higher evolutionary conservation than other lncRNAs and mRNAs. Importantly, the lncRNA-perturbated triplets exhibited high cancer specificity. The pan-cancer perturbator OIP5-AS1 had higher expression level than that of the cancer-specific perturbators. These lncRNA perturbators were significantly enriched in known cancer-related pathways. Furthermore, among the 25 lncRNA in the 109 triplets, lncRNA SNHG7 was identified as a stable potential biomarker in lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD) by combining the TCGA dataset and two independent GEO datasets. Results from cell transfection also indicated that overexpression of lncRNA SNHG7 and TUG1 enhanced the expression of the corresponding mRNA PNMA2 and CDC7 in LUAD. Our study provides a systematic dissection of lncRNA-perturbated triplets and facilitates our understanding of the molecular roles of lncRNAs in cancers.


mSystems ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 3 (5) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sara R. Selitsky ◽  
David Marron ◽  
Lisle E. Mose ◽  
Joel S. Parker ◽  
Dirk P. Dittmer

ABSTRACTEpstein-Barr virus (EBV) is convincingly associated with gastric cancer, nasopharyngeal carcinoma, and certain lymphomas, but its role in other cancer types remains controversial. To test the hypothesis that there are additional cancer types with high prevalence of EBV, we determined EBV viral expression in all the Cancer Genome Atlas Project (TCGA) mRNA sequencing (mRNA-seq) samples (n= 10,396) from 32 different tumor types. We found that EBV was present in gastric adenocarcinoma and lymphoma, as expected, and was also present in >5% of samples in 10 additional tumor types. For most samples, EBV transcript levels were low, which suggests that EBV was likely present due to infected infiltrating B cells. In order to determine if there was a difference in the B-cell populations, we assembled B-cell receptors for each sample and found B-cell receptor abundance (P≤ 1.4 × 10−20) and diversity (P≤ 8.3 × 10−27) were significantly higher in EBV-positive samples. Moreover, diversity was independent of B-cell abundance, suggesting that the presence of EBV was associated with an increased and altered B-cell population.IMPORTANCEAround 20% of human cancers are associated with viruses. Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) contributes to gastric cancer, nasopharyngeal carcinoma, and certain lymphomas, but its role in other cancer types remains controversial. We assessed the prevalence of EBV in RNA-seq from 32 tumor types in the Cancer Genome Atlas Project (TCGA) and found EBV to be present in >5% of samples in 12 tumor types. EBV infects epithelial cells and B cells and in B cells causes proliferation. We hypothesized that the low expression of EBV in most of the tumor types was due to infiltration of B cells into the tumor. The increase in B-cell abundance and diversity in subjects where EBV was detected in the tumors strengthens this hypothesis. Overall, we found that EBV was associated with an increased and altered immune response. This result is not evidence of causality, but a potential novel biomarker for tumor immune status.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lin Li ◽  
Mengyuan Li ◽  
Xiaosheng Wang

AbstractMany studies have shown thatTP53mutations play a negative role in antitumor immunity. However, a few studies reported thatTP53mutations could promote antitumor immunity. To explain these contradictory findings, we analyzed five cancer cohorts from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) project. We found thatTP53-mutated cancers had significantly higher levels of antitumor immune signatures thanTP53-wildtype cancers in breast invasive carcinoma (BRCA) and lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD). In contrast,TP53-mutated cancers had significantly lower antitumor immune signature levels thanTP53-wildtype cancers in stomach adenocarcinoma (STAD), colon adenocarcinoma (COAD), and head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSC). Moreover,TP53-mutated cancers likely had higher tumor mutation burden (TMB) and tumor aneuploidy level (TAL) thanTP53-wildtype cancers. However, the TMB differences were more marked betweenTP53-mutated andTP53-wildtype cancers than the TAL differences in BRCA and LUAD, and the TAL differences were more significant in STAD and COAD. Furthermore, we showed that TMB and TAL had a positive and a negative correlation with antitumor immunity and that TMB affected antitumor immunity more greatly than TAL did in BRCA and LUAD while TAL affected antitumor immunity more strongly than TMB in STAD and HNSC. These findings indicate that the distinct correlations betweenTP53mutations and antitumor immunity in different cancer types are a consequence of the joint effect of the altered TMB and TAL caused byTP53mutations on tumor immunity. Our data suggest that theTP53mutation status could be a useful biomarker for cancer immunotherapy response depending on cancer types.


2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nao Hiranuma ◽  
Jie Liu ◽  
Chaozhong Song ◽  
Jacob Goldsmith ◽  
Michael Dorschner ◽  
...  

About 16% of breast cancers fall into a clinically aggressive category designated triple negative (TNBC) due to a lack of ERBB2, estrogen receptor and progesterone receptor expression1-3. The mutational spectrum of TNBC has been characterized as part of The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA)4; however, snapshots of primary tumors cannot reveal the mechanisms by which TNBCs progress and spread. To address this limitation we initiated the Intensive Trial of OMics in Cancer (ITOMIC)-001, in which patients with metastatic TNBC undergo multiple biopsies over space and time5. Whole exome sequencing (WES) of 67 samples from 11 patients identified 426 genes containing multiple distinct single nucleotide variants (SNVs) within the same sample, instances we term Multiple SNVs affecting the Same Gene and Sample (MSSGS). We find that >90% of MSSGS result from cis-compound mutations (in which both SNVs affect the same allele), that MSSGS comprised of SNVs affecting adjacent nucleotides arise from single mutational events, and that most other MSSGS result from the sequential acquisition of SNVs. Some MSSGS drive cancer progression, as exemplified by a TNBC driven by FGFR2(S252W;Y375C). MSSGS are more prevalent in TNBC than other breast cancer subtypes and occur at higher-than-expected frequencies across TNBC samples within TCGA. MSSGS may denote genes that play as yet unrecognized roles in cancer progression.


2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhuyi Xue ◽  
René L Warren ◽  
Ewan A Gibb ◽  
Daniel MacMillan ◽  
Johnathan Wong ◽  
...  

AbstractAlternative polyadenylation (APA) of 3’ untranslated regions (3’ UTRs) has been implicated in cancer development. Earlier reports on APA in cancer primarily focused on 3’ UTR length modifications, and the conventional wisdom is that tumor cells preferentially express transcripts with shorter 3’ UTRs. Here, we analyzed the APA patterns of 114 genes, a select list of oncogenes and tumor suppressors, in 9,939 tumor and 729 normal tissue samples across 33 cancer types using RNA-Seq data from The Cancer Genome Atlas, and we found that the APA regulation machinery is much more complicated than what was previously thought. We report 77 cases (gene-cancer type pairs) of differential 3’ UTR cleavage patterns between normal and tumor tissues, involving 33 genes in 13 cancer types. For 15 genes, the tumor-specific cleavage patterns are recurrent across multiple cancer types. While the cleavage patterns in certain genes indicate apparent trends of 3’ UTR shortening in tumor samples, over half of the 77 cases imply 3’ UTR length change trends in cancer that are more complex than simple shortening or lengthening. This work extends the current understanding of APA regulation in cancer, and demonstrates how large volumes of RNA-seq data generated for characterizing cancer cohorts can be mined to investigate this process.


2021 ◽  
Vol 22 (18) ◽  
pp. 10172
Author(s):  
Saverio Candido ◽  
Barbara Maria Rita Tomasello ◽  
Alessandro Lavoro ◽  
Luca Falzone ◽  
Giuseppe Gattuso ◽  
...  

IL-6 pathway is abnormally hyperactivated in several cancers triggering tumor cell growth and immune system inhibition. Along with genomic mutation, the IL6 pathway gene expression can be affected by DNA methylation, microRNAs, and post-translational modifications. Computational analysis was performed on the Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) datasets to explore the role of IL6, IL6R, IL6ST, and IL6R transmembrane isoform expression and their epigenetic regulation in different cancer types. IL6 was significantly modulated in 70% of tumor types, revealing either up- or down-regulation in an approximately equal number of tumors. Furthermore, IL6R and IL6ST were downregulated in more than 10 tumors. Interestingly, the correlation analysis demonstrated that only the IL6R expression was negatively affected by the DNA methylation within the promoter region in most tumors. Meanwhile, only the IL6ST expression was extensively modulated by miRNAs including miR-182-5p, which also directly targeted all three genes. In addition, IL6 upregulated miR-181a-3p, mirR-214-3p, miR-18a-5p, and miR-938, which in turn inhibited the expression of IL6 receptors. Finally, the patients’ survival rate was significantly affected by analyzed targets in some tumors. Our results suggest the relevance of epigenetic regulation of IL6 signaling and pave the way for further studies to validate these findings and to assess the prognostic and therapeutic predictive value of these epigenetic markers on the clinical outcome and survival of cancer patients.


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