scholarly journals T-cell receptor sequencing of early stage breast cancer tumors identifies altered clonal structure of the T-cell repertoire

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
John F. Beausang ◽  
Amanda J. Wheeler ◽  
Natalie H. Chan ◽  
Violet R. Hanft ◽  
Frederick M. Dirbas ◽  
...  

Tumor infiltrating T-cells play an important role in many cancers, and can improve prognosis and yield therapeutic targets. We characterized T-cells infiltrating both breast cancer tumors and the surrounding normal breast tissue to identify T-cells specific to each, as well as their abundance in peripheral blood. Using immune profiling of the T-cell beta chain repertoire in 16 patients with early stage breast cancer, we show that the clonal structure of the tumor is significantly different from adjacent breast tissue, with the tumor containing approximately 3-fold more T-cells, but with a lower fraction of unique sequences and higher clonality compared to normal breast. The clonal structure of T-cells in blood and normal breast is more similar than between blood and tumor and can be used to distinguish tumor from normal breast tissue in 14 of 16 patients. Many T-cells overlap between tissues from the same patient, including approximately 50% of T-cells between tumor and normal breast. Both solid tissues contain high-abundance "enriched" sequences that are absent or of low abundance in the other tissue. Many of these T-cells are either not detected or detected with very low frequency in the blood, suggesting the existence of separate compartments of T-cells in both tumor and normal breast. Enriched T-cell sequences are typically unique to each patient, but there is a subset of sequences that are shared between many different patients. We show that most of these are commonly generated sequences and thus unlikely to play an important role in the tumor microenvironment.

2017 ◽  
Vol 114 (48) ◽  
pp. E10409-E10417 ◽  
Author(s):  
John F. Beausang ◽  
Amanda J. Wheeler ◽  
Natalie H. Chan ◽  
Violet R. Hanft ◽  
Frederick M. Dirbas ◽  
...  

Tumor-infiltrating T cells play an important role in many cancers, and can improve prognosis and yield therapeutic targets. We characterized T cells infiltrating both breast cancer tumors and the surrounding normal breast tissue to identify T cells specific to each, as well as their abundance in peripheral blood. Using immune profiling of the T cell beta-chain repertoire in 16 patients with early-stage breast cancer, we show that the clonal structure of the tumor is significantly different from adjacent breast tissue, with the tumor containing ∼2.5-fold greater density of T cells and higher clonality compared with normal breast. The clonal structure of T cells in blood and normal breast is more similar than between blood and tumor, and could be used to distinguish tumor from normal breast tissue in 14 of 16 patients. Many T cell sequences overlap between tissue and blood from the same patient, including ∼50% of T cells between tumor and normal breast. Both tumor and normal breast contain high-abundance “enriched” sequences that are absent or of low abundance in the other tissue. Many of these T cells are either not detected or detected with very low frequency in the blood, suggesting the existence of separate compartments of T cells in both tumor and normal breast. Enriched T cell sequences are typically unique to each patient, but a subset is shared between many different patients. We show that many of these are commonly generated sequences, and thus unlikely to play an important role in the tumor microenvironment.


2019 ◽  
Vol 37 (15_suppl) ◽  
pp. 585-585
Author(s):  
Evthokia Hobbs ◽  
Fei Yang ◽  
Tapsi Kumar ◽  
Alejandro Contreras ◽  
Edwin Roger Parra Cuentas ◽  
...  

585 Background: We previously reported a median tumor volume loss of 88% (range 30-98%) in 13 patients with early stage BRCA1/2 mutant breast cancer treated on a neoadjuvant trial of the PARP inhibitor talazoparib. The effects of PARP inhibition on immune aspects of the TiME in early-stage breast cancer has not been well described. The goal of this study was to evaluate the TiME in pre and post-treatment core biopsies from enrolled patients. Methods: Eleven paired core biopsies were available for examination. Tumor infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) were quantified by H&E stained slides by a central pathologist. Specimens were assessed by multiplex immunofluorescence (mIF) using a panel of 6 biomarkers (PD-1, PD-L1, CD3, CD8, CD68 and CK) with the Opal 7-color Kit in LEICA BOND auto stainer, Vectra automated quantitative pathology imaging system and inForm software (PerkinElmer). Results: In the analyzed core biopsies, there was an increase in TILs evaluated by H&E in post-treatment compared to baseline (mean 36 vs 11%). By mIF there was an increase in CD3+ T cell and CD3+CD8+ cytotoxic T cell density in post-treatment samples compared to baseline, summarized in table. PD-L1 expression in tumor cells was rare in the cohort. There was no difference in CD3+PD-1+ or CD3+CD8+ PD-1+ lymphocytes in pre and post-treatment specimens. There was also no differences in macrophages (CD68+). Evaluation of immune phenotype and imaging response will be presented in the final analysis. Conclusions: This is the first study phenotyping the immune response to neoadjuvant talazoparib in BRCA-mutant breast cancer patients. In this small cohort, intratumoral and stromal CD3+ T cells and CD3+CD8+ cytotoxic T cells increased after two months of talazoparib. Clinical trial information: NCT02282345. [Table: see text]


2009 ◽  
Vol 27 (15_suppl) ◽  
pp. e14645-e14645
Author(s):  
N. Kounalakis ◽  
S. Lau ◽  
D. Darling ◽  
M. Palomares ◽  
M. Senthil ◽  
...  

e14645 Background: Farnesoid X receptor (FXR), a nuclear receptor, is a ligand dependent transcriptional factor regulating cholesterol and carbohydrate metabolism. Recently, FXR was shown to have a contributing role in colorectal cancer. We hypothesize that FXR expression changes from normal to premalignant to malignant tissue in patients with breast cancer. Methods: We identified 16 paired formaldehyde fixed, paraffin embedded tissue (normal, premalignant, and malignant) from patients with receptor positive, early stage breast cancer. Clinical information was extracted from a prospective database initiated in 2006 under institutional approval. Immunohistochemical staining of FXR using a validated polyclonal antibody was completed with appropriate positive and negative controls. The slides were graded independently by two investigators using an agreed upon scale to detect the percentage of positively stained cells to the nearest 10th percentile. Statistical analysis was performed by ANOVA and Student's t-test. A p-value of 0.05 was considered significant in all analyses. Results: Normal tissue and invasive cancer was identified in all 16 patient specimens. Of the 16 invasive cancers, 12 were ductal and 4 were lobular. 8/16 (50%) of the specimens also contained non-invasive cancer. 5/16 patients (31%) had N1 disease. FXR expression did not correlate with grade, histology, stage, or lymph node status. However, FXR expression increases with malignant transformation of the breast cancer cell. The mean percentage of cells staining positive for FXR in normal breast tissue was 58%, non-invasive 72% and invasive 79%. FXR staining in normal breast tissue was significantly less when compared to both invasive and noninvasive cancer (p< 0.007). Conclusions: FXR expression is upregulated in breast cancer when compared with expression in normal tissue and appears to progressively increase along the continuum of malignancy. Our pilot study results warrant further evaluation into FXR as a predictive biomarker for breast cancer, given the ability to target FXR via development of non-toxic oral ligands. No significant financial relationships to disclose.


2021 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Shoghag Panjarian ◽  
Jozef Madzo ◽  
Kelsey Keith ◽  
Carolyn M. Slater ◽  
Carmen Sapienza ◽  
...  

Abstract Background DNA methylation alterations have similar patterns in normal aging tissue and in cancer. In this study, we investigated breast tissue-specific age-related DNA methylation alterations and used those methylation sites to identify individuals with outlier phenotypes. Outlier phenotype is identified by unsupervised anomaly detection algorithms and is defined by individuals who have normal tissue age-dependent DNA methylation levels that vary dramatically from the population mean. Methods We generated whole-genome DNA methylation profiles (GSE160233) on purified epithelial cells and used publicly available Infinium HumanMethylation 450K array datasets (TCGA, GSE88883, GSE69914, GSE101961, and GSE74214) for discovery and validation. Results We found that hypermethylation in normal breast tissue is the best predictor of hypermethylation in cancer. Using unsupervised anomaly detection approaches, we found that about 10% of the individuals (39/427) were outliers for DNA methylation from 6 DNA methylation datasets. We also found that there were significantly more outlier samples in normal-adjacent to cancer (24/139, 17.3%) than in normal samples (15/228, 5.2%). Additionally, we found significant differences between the predicted ages based on DNA methylation and the chronological ages among outliers and not-outliers. Additionally, we found that accelerated outliers (older predicted age) were more frequent in normal-adjacent to cancer (14/17, 82%) compared to normal samples from individuals without cancer (3/17, 18%). Furthermore, in matched samples, we found that the epigenome of the outliers in the pre-malignant tissue was as severely altered as in cancer. Conclusions A subset of patients with breast cancer has severely altered epigenomes which are characterized by accelerated aging in their normal-appearing tissue. In the future, these DNA methylation sites should be studied further such as in cell-free DNA to determine their potential use as biomarkers for early detection of malignant transformation and preventive intervention in breast cancer.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Toshiaki Akahane ◽  
Naoki Kanomata ◽  
Oi Harada ◽  
Tetsumasa Yamashita ◽  
Junichi Kurebayashi ◽  
...  

Abstract Background: Next-generation sequencing (NGS) has shown that recurrent/metastatic breast cancer lesions may have additional genetic changes compared with the primary tumor. These additional changes may be related to tumor progression and/or drug resistance. However, breast cancer-targeted NGS is not still widely used in clinical practice to compare the genomic profiles of primary breast cancer and recurrent/metastatic lesions.Methods: Triplet samples of genomic DNA were extracted from each patient’s normal breast tissue, primary breast cancer, and recurrent/metastatic lesion(s). A DNA library was constructed using the QIAseq Human Breast Cancer Panel (93 genes, Qiagen) and then sequenced using MiSeq (Illumina). The Qiagen web portal was utilized for data analysis.Results: Successful results for three or four samples (normal breast tissue, primary tumor, and at least one metastatic/recurrent lesion) were obtained for 11 of 35 breast cancer patients with recurrence/metastases (36 samples). We detected shared somatic mutations in all but one patient, who had a germline mutation in TP53. Additional mutations that were detected in recurrent/metastatic lesions compared with primary tumor were in genes including TP53 (three patients) and one case each of ATR, BLM, CBFB, EP300, ERBB2, MUC16, PBRM1, and PIK3CA. Actionable mutations and/or copy number variations (CNVs) were detected in 73% (8/11) of recurrent/metastatic breast cancer lesions.Conclusions: The QIAseq Human Breast Cancer Panel assay showed that recurrent/metastatic breast cancers sometimes acquired additional mutations and CNV. Such additional genomic changes could provide therapeutic target.


Cancers ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (11) ◽  
pp. 3088 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kaoutar Ennour-Idrissi ◽  
Dzevka Dragic ◽  
Elissar Issa ◽  
Annick Michaud ◽  
Sue-Ling Chang ◽  
...  

Differential DNA methylation is a potential marker of breast cancer risk. Few studies have investigated DNA methylation changes in normal breast tissue and were largely confounded by cancer field effects. To detect methylation changes in normal breast epithelium that are causally associated with breast cancer occurrence, we used a nested case–control study design based on a prospective cohort of patients diagnosed with a primary invasive hormone receptor-positive breast cancer. Twenty patients diagnosed with a contralateral breast cancer (CBC) were matched (1:1) with 20 patients who did not develop a CBC on relevant risk factors. Differentially methylated Cytosine-phosphate-Guanines (CpGs) and regions in normal breast epithelium were identified using an epigenome-wide DNA methylation assay and robust linear regressions. Analyses were replicated in two independent sets of normal breast tissue and blood. We identified 7315 CpGs (FDR < 0.05), 52 passing strict Bonferroni correction (p < 1.22 × 10−7) and 43 mapping to known genes involved in metabolic diseases with significant enrichment (p < 0.01) of pathways involving fatty acids metabolic processes. Four differentially methylated genes were detected in both site-specific and regions analyses (LHX2, TFAP2B, JAKMIP1, SEPT9), and three genes overlapped all three datasets (POM121L2, KCNQ1, CLEC4C). Once validated, the seven differentially methylated genes distinguishing women who developed and who did not develop a sporadic breast cancer could be used to enhance breast cancer risk-stratification, and allow implementation of targeted screening and preventive strategies that would ultimately improve breast cancer prognosis.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document