IMMU-31. TUMOR-SPECIFIC ALTERNATIVE SPLICING GENERATES SPATIALLY-CONSERVED HLA-BINDING NEOANTIGEN TARGETS DETECTED THROUGH INTEGRATIVE TRANSCRIPTOMIC AND PROTEOMIC ANALYSES

2021 ◽  
Vol 23 (Supplement_6) ◽  
pp. vi99-vi99
Author(s):  
Darwin Kwok ◽  
Takahide Nejo ◽  
Joseph Costello ◽  
Hideho Okada

Abstract BACKGROUND While immunotherapy is profoundly efficacious in certain cancers, its success is limited in cancers with lower mutational burden, such as gliomas. Therefore, investigating neoantigens beyond those from somatic mutations can expand the repertoire of immunotherapy targets. Recent studies detected alternative-splicing (AS) events in various cancer types that could potentially translate into tumor-specific proteins. Our study investigates AS within glioma to identify novel MHC-I-presented neoantigen targets through an integrative transcriptomic and proteomic computational pipeline, complemented by an extensive spatiotemporal analysis of the AS candidates. METHODS Bulk RNA-seq of high tumor purity TCGA-GBM/LGG (n=429) were analyzed through a novel systematic pipeline, and tumor-specific splicing junctions (neojunctions) were identified in silico by cross-referencing with bulk RNA-seq of GTEx normal tissue (n=9,166). Two HLA-binding prediction algorithms were subsequently incorporated to predict peptide sequences with high likelihood for HLA-presentation. Investigation of the tumor-wide clonality and temporal stability of the candidates was performed on extensive RNA-seq data from our spatially mapped intratumoral samples and longitudinally collected tumor tissue RNA-seq. Proteomic validation was conducted through mass-spec analysis of the Clinical Proteomic Tumor Analysis Consortium (CPTAC)-GBM repository (n=99). RESULTS Our analysis of TCGA-GBM/LGG bulk RNA-seq identified 249 putative neojunctions that translate into 222 cancer-specific peptide sequences which confer 21,489 tumor-specific n-mers (8-11 amino acids in length). Both prediction algorithms concurrently identified 271 n-mers likely to bind and be presented by HLA*A0101, HLA*A0201, HLA*A0301, HLA*A1101, or HLA*A2402. We confirmed the expression of 15 out of 58 HLA*A0201-binding candidates in HLA*A0201+ patient-derived glioma cell line RNA-seq with a subset of candidates conserved spatially. Analysis of CPTAC-GBM mass-spec data detected 23 tumor-specific peptides with 5 containing detected n-mers highly predicted to be HLA-presented. CONCLUSION Tumor-specific neojunctions identified in our unique integrative pipeline present novel candidate immunotherapy targets for gliomas and offer a new avenue in neoantigen discovery across cancer types.

Author(s):  
Stacey J. Scott ◽  
Xiaodun Li ◽  
Sriganesh Jammula ◽  
Ginny Devonshire ◽  
Catherine Lindon ◽  
...  

AbstractPolyploidy is present in many cancer types and is increasingly recognized as an important factor in promoting chromosomal instability, genome evolution, and heterogeneity in cancer cells. However, the mechanisms that trigger polyploidy in cancer cells are largely unknown. In this study, we investigated the origin of polyploidy in esophageal adenocarcinoma (EAC), a highly heterogenous cancer, using a combination of genomics and cell biology approaches in EAC cell lines, organoids, and tumors. We found the EAC cells and organoids present specific mitotic defects consistent with problems in the attachment of chromosomes to the microtubules of the mitotic spindle. Time-lapse analyses confirmed that EAC cells have problems in congressing and aligning their chromosomes, which can ultimately culminate in mitotic slippage and polyploidy. Furthermore, whole-genome sequencing, RNA-seq, and quantitative immunofluorescence analyses revealed alterations in the copy number, expression, and cellular distribution of several proteins known to be involved in the mechanics and regulation of chromosome dynamics during mitosis. Together, these results provide evidence that an imbalance in the amount of proteins implicated in the attachment of chromosomes to spindle microtubules is the molecular mechanism underlying mitotic slippage in EAC. Our findings that the likely origin of polyploidy in EAC is mitotic failure caused by problems in chromosomal attachments not only improves our understanding of cancer evolution and diversification, but may also aid in the classification and treatment of EAC and possibly other highly heterogeneous cancers.


Genes ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (6) ◽  
pp. 896
Author(s):  
Yuenan Zhou ◽  
Pei Yang ◽  
Shuang Xie ◽  
Min Shi ◽  
Jianhua Huang ◽  
...  

The endoparasitic wasp Cotesia vestalis is an important biological agent for controlling the population of Plutella xylostella, a major pest of cruciferous crops worldwide. Though the genome of C. vestalis has recently been reported, molecular mechanisms associated with sexual development have not been comprehensively studied. Here, we combined PacBio Iso-Seq and Illumina RNA-Seq to perform genome-wide profiling of pharate adult and adult development of male and female C. vestalis. Taking advantage of Iso-Seq full-length reads, we identified 14,466 novel transcripts as well as 8770 lncRNAs, with many lncRNAs showing a sex- and stage-specific expression pattern. The differentially expressed gene (DEG) analyses showed 2125 stage-specific and 326 sex-specific expressed genes. We also found that 4819 genes showed 11,856 alternative splicing events through combining the Iso-Seq and RNA-Seq data. The results of comparative analyses showed that most genes were alternatively spliced across developmental stages, and alternative splicing (AS) events were more prevalent in females than in males. Furthermore, we identified six sex-determining genes in this parasitic wasp and verified their sex-specific alternative splicing profiles. Specifically, the characterization of feminizer and doublesex splicing between male and female implies a conserved regulation mechanism of sexual development in parasitic wasps.


BMC Cancer ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Pihua Han ◽  
Jingjun Zhu ◽  
Guang Feng ◽  
Zizhang Wang ◽  
Yanni Ding

Abstract Background Breast cancer (BRCA) is one of the most common cancers worldwide. Abnormal alternative splicing (AS) frequently observed in cancers. This study aims to demonstrate AS events and signatures that might serve as prognostic indicators for BRCA. Methods Original data for all seven types of splice events were obtained from TCGA SpliceSeq database. RNA-seq and clinical data of BRCA cohorts were downloaded from TCGA database. Survival-associated AS events in BRCA were analyzed by univariate COX proportional hazards regression model. Prognostic signatures were constructed for prognosis prediction in patients with BRCA based on survival-associated AS events. Pearson correlation analysis was performed to measure the correlation between the expression of splicing factors (SFs) and the percent spliced in (PSI) values of AS events. Gene ontology (GO) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) were conducted to demonstrate pathways in which survival-associated AS event is enriched. Results A total of 45,421 AS events in 21,232 genes were identified. Among them, 1121 AS events in 931 genes significantly correlated with survival for BRCA. The established AS prognostic signatures of seven types could accurately predict BRCA prognosis. The comprehensive AS signature could serve as independent prognostic factor for BRCA. A SF-AS regulatory network was therefore established based on the correlation between the expression levels of SFs and PSI values of AS events. Conclusions This study revealed survival-associated AS events and signatures that may help predict the survival outcomes of patients with BRCA. Additionally, the constructed SF-AS networks in BRCA can reveal the underlying regulatory mechanisms in BRCA.


2013 ◽  
Vol 14 (7) ◽  
pp. R74 ◽  
Author(s):  
Keyan Zhao ◽  
Zhi-xiang Lu ◽  
Juw Park ◽  
Qing Zhou ◽  
Yi Xing

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Bin Liu ◽  
Shuo Zhao ◽  
Pengli Li ◽  
Yilu Yin ◽  
Qingliang Niu ◽  
...  

AbstractIn plants, alternative splicing (AS) is markedly induced in response to environmental stresses, but it is unclear why plants generate multiple transcripts under stress conditions. In this study, RNA-seq was performed to identify AS events in cucumber seedlings grown under different light intensities. We identified a novel transcript of the gibberellin (GA)-deactivating enzyme Gibberellin 2-beta-dioxygenase 8 (CsGA2ox8). Compared with canonical CsGA2ox8.1, the CsGA2ox8.2 isoform presented intron retention between the second and third exons. Functional analysis proved that the transcript of CsGA2ox8.1 but not CsGA2ox8.2 played a role in the deactivation of bioactive GAs. Moreover, expression analysis demonstrated that both transcripts were upregulated by increased light intensity, but the expression level of CsGA2ox8.1 increased slowly when the light intensity was >400 µmol·m−2·s−1 PPFD (photosynthetic photon flux density), while the CsGA2ox8.2 transcript levels increased rapidly when the light intensity was >200 µmol·m−2·s−1 PPFD. Our findings provide evidence that plants might finely tune their GA levels by buffering against the normal transcripts of CsGA2ox8 through AS.


Cancers ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (9) ◽  
pp. 2476 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shaoli Das ◽  
Kevin Camphausen ◽  
Uma Shankavaram

To elucidate the role of immune cell infiltration as a prognostic signature in solid tumors, we analyzed immune-function-related genes from four publicly available single-cell RNA-Seq data sets and twenty bulk tumor RNA-Seq data sets from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA). Unsupervised clustering of pan-cancer transcriptomic signature showed two major immune function types: one related to NK-, T-, and B-cell functions and the other related to monocyte, macrophage, dendritic cell, and Toll-like receptor functions. Kaplan–Meier analysis showed differential prognosis of these two groups, dependent on the cancer type. Our analysis of TCGA solid tumors with an elastic net model identified 155 genes associated with disease-free survival in different tumor types with varied influence across different cancer types. With this gene set, we computed cancer-specific prognostic immune score models for individual cancer types that predicted disease-free and overall survival. Validation of our model on available published data of immune checkpoint blockade therapies on melanoma, kidney renal cell carcinoma, non-small cell lung cancer, gastric cancer and bladder cancer confirmed that cancer-specific higher immune scores are associated with response to immunotherapy. Our analysis provides a comprehensive map of cancer-specific immune-related prognostic gene sets that are associated with immunotherapy response.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ramon Viñas ◽  
Tiago Azevedo ◽  
Eric R. Gamazon ◽  
Pietro Liò

AbstractA question of fundamental biological significance is to what extent the expression of a subset of genes can be used to recover the full transcriptome, with important implications for biological discovery and clinical application. To address this challenge, we present GAIN-GTEx, a method for gene expression imputation based on Generative Adversarial Imputation Networks. In order to increase the applicability of our approach, we leverage data from GTEx v8, a reference resource that has generated a comprehensive collection of transcriptomes from a diverse set of human tissues. We compare our model to several standard and state-of-the-art imputation methods and show that GAIN-GTEx is significantly superior in terms of predictive performance and runtime. Furthermore, our results indicate strong generalisation on RNA-Seq data from 3 cancer types across varying levels of missingness. Our work can facilitate a cost-effective integration of large-scale RNA biorepositories into genomic studies of disease, with high applicability across diverse tissue types.


2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (Suppl 3) ◽  
pp. A86-A86
Author(s):  
Paul DePietro ◽  
Mary Nesline ◽  
Yong Hee Lee ◽  
RJ Seager ◽  
Erik Van Roey ◽  
...  

BackgroundImmune checkpoint inhibitor-based therapies have achieved impressive success in the treatment of several cancer types. Predictive immune biomarkers, including PD-L1, MSI and TMB are well established as surrogate markers for immune evasion and tumor-specific neoantigens across many tumors. Positive detection across cancer types varies, but overall ~50% of patients test negative for these primary immune markers.1 In this study, we investigated the prevalence of secondary immune biomarkers outside of PD-L1, TMB and MSI.MethodsComprehensive genomic and immune profiling, including PD-L1 IHC, TMB, MSI and gene expression of 395 immune related genes was performed on 6078 FFPE tumors representing 34 cancer types, predominantly composed of lung cancer (36.7%), colorectal cancer (11.9%) and breast cancer (8.5%). Expression levels by RNA-seq of 36 genes targeted by immunotherapies in solid tumor clinical trials, identified as secondary immune biomarkers, were ranked against a reference population. Genes with a rank value ≥75th percentile were considered high and values were associated with PD-L1 (positive ≥1%), MSI (MSI-H or MSS) and TMB (high ≥10 Mut/Mb) status. Additionally, secondary immune biomarker status was segmented by tumor type and cancer immune cycle roles.ResultsIn total, 41.0% of cases were PD-L1+, 6.4% TMB+, and 0.1% MSI-H. 12.6% of cases were positive for >2 of these markers while 39.9% were triple negative (PD-L1-/TMB-/MSS). Of the PD-L1-/TMB-/MSS cases, 89.1% were high for at least one secondary immune biomarker, with 69.3% having ≥3 markers. PD-L1-/TMB-/MSS tumor types with ≥50% prevalence of high secondary immune biomarkers included brain, prostate, kidney, sarcoma, gallbladder, breast, colorectal, and liver cancer. High expression of cancer testis antigen secondary immune biomarkers (e.g., NY-ESO-1, LAGE-1A, MAGE-A4) was most commonly observed in bladder, ovarian, sarcoma, liver, and prostate cancer (≥15%). Tumors demonstrating T-cell priming (e.g., CD40, OX40, CD137), trafficking (e.g., TGFB1, TLR9, TNF) and/or recognition (e.g., CTLA4, LAG3, TIGIT) secondary immune biomarkers were most represented by kidney, gallbladder, and sarcoma (≥40%), with melanoma, esophageal, head & neck, cervical, stomach, and lung cancer least represented (≥15%).ConclusionsOur studies show comprehensive tumor profiling that includes gene expression can detect secondary immune biomarkers targeted by investigational therapies in ~90% of PD-L1-/TMB-/MSS cases. While genomic profiling could also provide therapeutic choices for a percentage of these patients, detection of secondary immune biomarkers by RNA-seq provides additional options for patients without a clear therapeutic path as determined by PD-L1 testing and genomic profiling alone.ReferenceHuang R S P, Haberberger J, Severson E, et al. A pan-cancer analysis of PD-L1 immunohistochemistry and gene amplification, tumor mutation burden and microsatellite instability in 48,782 cases. Mod Pathol 2021;34: 252–263.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zixiao Zhao ◽  
Christine G. Elsik ◽  
Bruce E. Hibbard ◽  
Kent S. Shelby

AbstractBackgroundAlternative splicing is one of the major mechanisms that increases transcriptome diversity in eukaryotes, including insect species that have gained resistance to pesticides and Bt toxins. In western corn rootworm (Diabrotica virgifera virgifera LeConte), neither alternative splicing nor its role in resistance to Bt toxins has been studied.ResultsTo investigate the mechanisms of Bt resistance we carried out single-molecule real-time (SMRT) transcript sequencing and Iso-seq analysis on resistant, eCry3.1Ab-selected and susceptible, unselected, western corn rootworm neonate midguts which fed on seedling maize with and without eCry3.1Ab for 12 and 24 hours. We present transcriptome-wide alternative splicing patterns of western corn rootworm midgut in response to feeding on eCry3.1Ab-expressing corn using a comprehensive approach that combines both RNA-seq and SMRT transcript sequencing techniques. We found that 67.73% of multi-exon genes are alternatively spliced, which is consistent with the high transposable element content of the genome. One of the alternative splicing events we identified was a novel peritrophic matrix protein with two alternative splicing isoforms. Analysis of differential exon usage between resistant and susceptible colonies showed that in eCry3.1Ab-resistant western corn rootworm, expression of one isoform was significantly higher than in the susceptible colony, while no significant differences between colonies were observed with the other isoform.ConclusionOur results provide the first survey of alternative splicing in western corn rootworm and suggest that the observed alternatively spliced isoforms of peritrophic matrix protein may be associated with eCry3.1Ab resistance in western corn rootworm.


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