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Z. Wainer



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    O04 - Molecular Pathology I (ID 126)

    • Event: WCLC 2013
    • Type: Oral Abstract Session
    • Track: Pathology
    • Presentations: 1
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      O04.01 - Identification of CD74-NRG1, a new recurrent fusion gene in invasive mucinous lung adenocarcinomas of never smokers (ID 4022)

      10:30 - 12:00  |  Author(s): Z. Wainer

      • Abstract
      • Presentation
      • Slides

      Background
      Lung adenocarcinoma (AD) of patients who have never smoked frequently bear targetable genome kinase alterations, such as EGFR mutations and translocations affecting ALK, ROS1, and RET genes. These mutations correlate with kinase inhibitor sensitivity in mouse models or in patients. Unfortunately, therapeutically relevant kinase alterations are not present in all lung cancer specimens. Thus, additional genome alterations need to be discovered in order to provide a therapeutic opportunity for the remaining patients.

      Methods
      We collected a cohort of 25 AD specimens of never smokers lacking mutations in KRAS or EGFR, in which we performed transcriptome sequencing with the aim of identifying new oncogenic driver genes.

      Results
      We were able to identify known kinase fusions affecting ALK, ROS1 and RET genes in 3 cases each. Moreover, we detected one sample carrying a novel chimeric transcript fusing the first six exons of CD74 to the EGF-like domain of the NRG1 III-β3 isoform, leading to the expression of its EGF-like domain in an otherwise NRG1-negative tumor tissue. The fusion gene was further detected in four additional cases out of 94 pan-negative* ADs of never smokers. In total, all 5 cases were identified in stage I invasive mucinous lung adenocarcinomas (IMA) of never smoker females. This tumor type frequently presents with multifocal unresectable disease, for which no effective treatment has been yet established. IMA is highly associated with KRAS mutations; indeed, out of 15 IMA analysed, 6 carried a KRAS mutation (40%), and 4 the CD74-NRG1 fusion (27%). Given the fact that NRG1 signals through ERBB3 and ERBB4 receptors, we aimed to determine which receptor CD74-NRG1 provides the ligand for. We observed that ERBB4 was not expressed in the index case, while ERBB3 was relatively highly expressed and this expression also correlated with a positive phospho-ERBB3 (p-ERBB3) signal in the tumoral tissue of all 5 CD74-NRG1 positive cases. In order to test if this phosphorylation of ERBB3 was statistically significant, we stained a cohort of 241 ADs and found that p-ERBB3 was only positive in 6 of them (p-value<0.0001). Additionally, although both EGFR and ERBB2 were expressed in the index case, only ERBB2 expression correlated with a p-ERBB2 positive signal. These data suggest that CD74-NRG1 might provide the ligand for ERBB3, which may form heterodimers with ERBB2, since ERBB3 is devoid of intrinsic kinase activity and cannot support linear signaling in isolation. This is in line with previous studies showing that NRG1 induces an oncogenic signal through ERBB2-ERBB3 heterodimers engaging the PI3K-AKT pathway. This was further supported by the activation of the PI3K-AKT, but not the MAPK pathway, in CD74-NRG1 transduced H2052 lung cells, after 24h starvation. *pan-negative: EGFR, KRAS, ALK, HER2, BRAF, ROS1 and RET wild-type

      Conclusion
      Altogether, these data shows that CD74-NRG1 is a new recurrent oncogenic fusion gene, highly associated with IMA of never smokers. It also suggests that CD74-NRG1 fusion protein signals through the ERBB2-ERBB3 receptors complex leading to the activation of the PI3K-AKT pathway, providing a therapeutic opportunity for a tumor type with, so far, no effective treatment.

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    O17 - Anatomical Pathology I (ID 128)

    • Event: WCLC 2013
    • Type: Oral Abstract Session
    • Track: Pathology
    • Presentations: 1
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      O17.07 - Prevalence, morphology and natural history of FGFR1-amplified lung cancer detected by FISH and SISH (ID 2776)

      10:30 - 12:00  |  Author(s): Z. Wainer

      • Abstract
      • Presentation
      • Slides

      Background
      Fibroblast growth factor receptor 1 (FGFR1), which codes for a receptor tyrosine kinase, was recently reported to be amplified in 20% of lung squamous cell carcinoma (SqCC). In vitro and preclinical tests suggest that FGFR1 amplification is a therapeutic target. Our aims were to investigate the prevalence of FGFR1 amplification by fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) and determine correlation with outcome in an Australian cohort of resected lung cancer. We also correlated results of FGFR1 FISH with silver in situ hybridization (SISH).

      Methods
      A clinically-annotated tissue microarray was constructed from resected lung cancer tissue collected from 1996-2012. FGFR1 FISH and SISH were performed according to manufacturer’s protocols, with SISH performed on Ventana benchmark XT platform. FGFR1 FISH and SISH were scored by one pathologist, with high level amplification defined as ratio of FGFR1/centromere 8 ≥ 2, or tumor cell percentage with ≥ 15 signals ≥ 10%, or average number of FGFR1 signals/tumor cell nucleus ≥ 6, and low level amplification as tumor cell percentage with ≥ 5 signals ≥ 50%. Results of FGFR1 FISH and SISH were compared. Patient outcome related to FGFR1-amplified tumors was assessed and compared to patients with SqCC, or with a morphologic component of, or immunoprofile of SqCC, but normal FGFR1 copy number.

      Results
      Of 406 tumors tested, there were 191 pure SqCC, 28 carcinomas with a SqCC component, 24 large cell carcinomas with an immunoprofile of SqCC, 115 adenocarcinomas, 22 pulmonary neuroendocrine tumors, and 28 other carcinomas without a morphologic component or immunoprofile of SqCC. FGFR1 amplification was assessable in 368 tumors. FGFR1 amplification was identified with FISH in 50 tumors, 48 (48/225; 21.3%) of which were either pure SqCC or a carcinoma with morphologic component or immunoprofile of SqCC. Only two cases were completely of non-squamous origin (2/143; 1.4%, p<0.00001). FGFR1 SISH was performed in 385 tumors, with 347 tumors assessable. Of 46 FGFR1 FISH-amplified tumors assessed with FGFR1 SISH, all showed FGFR1 amplification with SISH, whilst all other tumors tested were negative. Survival from radically treated FGFR1-amplified tumors was similar to all others with a squamous component (73% versus 60% 5-yr survival, HR 0.68, p=0.25; Figure 1).Figure 1

      Conclusion
      FGFR1 amplification with FISH was identified in 21.3% of pure SqCC or carcinomas with a morphologic component or immunoprofile of SqCC, but only 1.4% of completely non-squamous tumors. All adenocarcinomas and neuroendocrine tumors were negative. FGFR1 SISH showed 1:1 correlation to FGFR1 FISH.

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    P3.06 - Poster Session 3 - Prognostic and Predictive Biomarkers (ID 178)

    • Event: WCLC 2013
    • Type: Poster Session
    • Track: Biology
    • Presentations: 1
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      P3.06-002 - RLIP76 expression is prognostic and predictive of chemotherapy benefit in resected NSCLC (ID 247)

      09:30 - 16:30  |  Author(s): Z. Wainer

      • Abstract

      Background
      Despite adjuvant chemotherapy improving overall survival of resected Stage II and III non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), acute and late toxicities of chemotherapy have highlighted the need to better predict which patients will benefit from treatment. RLIP76 is a ubiquitously expressed multi-functional transporter that is associated with cisplatin and vinorelbine resistance. Our aim was to analyse the prognostic and predictive value of RLIP76 expression in NSCLC.

      Methods
      We identified 367 NSCLC patients resected between 1996 and 2009. A tissue microarray was created and immunohistochemistry (IHC) performed with an anti-human RLIP76 rabbit polycloncal antibody (Millipore, Temecula, CA). The intensity (0-3) and proportion of tumour cells (0-100) with staining was scored. The product of RLIP76 intensity and proportion of tumour cells staining was calculated (range 0-300) and divided into high (>100) and no/low expression (≤100). RLIP76 expression was correlated with clinical features and patient outcome.

      Results
      IHC was available for 285 patients, 173(60.7%) of which were male. Number of patients according to stage I, II, III and IV was 150(52.6%), 83(29%), 44(15.4%) and 8(3%), respectively. RLIP76 was overexpressed in 117(41%) specimens. There was no relationship between RLIP76 expression and stage, histology, sex or age. High RLIP76 expression was associated with an improved prognosis on univariate (HR 0.62, CI 9.44-0.90, p=0.012,Figure 1) and multivariate analysis (HR 0.57, CI 0.39-0.83, p=0.003). Adjuvant chemotherapy was also associated with an improved survival on multivariate analysis (HR 0.52, CI 0.33-0.82, p=0.005). When stratifying by RLIP76 expression, the benefit of chemotherapy was limited to patients with no/low expression (HR =0.44, CI 0.24-0.8, p=0.008)(Figure 2). No benefit of chemotherapy was seen in patients with high RLIP76 expression (HR=0.75, CI 0.34-1.63, p=0.5). Figure 1 Figure 2

      Conclusion
      High RLIP76 expression is associated with an improved prognosis in resected NSCLC.Interestingly no/low RLIP76 expression may predict for benefit of adjuvant chemotherapy. Further studies are needed to confirm these results.