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E. Wauters



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    MINI 01 - Pathology (ID 93)

    • Event: WCLC 2015
    • Type: Mini Oral
    • Track: Biology, Pathology, and Molecular Testing
    • Presentations: 1
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      MINI01.11 - Transcriptome Sequencing of Tumor vs. Surrounding Non-Malignant Lung Tissue in Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer (ID 1765)

      10:45 - 12:15  |  Author(s): E. Wauters

      • Abstract
      • Slides

      Background:
      Both the response and the therapeutic ratio of targeted agents in NSCLC may depend on the expression of the target molecules in the tumor and the surrounding non-malignant lung tissue. We therefore performed transcriptome analysis and investigated correlations with histology, gender, age, CRP level and smoking status as well as evaluated the differential pathway expression in primary resected NSCLC and the surrounding non-malignant lung of the same patient.

      Methods:
      Transcriptome sequencing was performed on the primary tumor and distant lung tissue of the same patient from resection specimens of NSCLC patients. Differential gene expression between different conditions was identified using the statistical algorithms Cufflinks, EdgeR and DeSeq. Differential expression with P-values <0.05 after Benjamini-Hochberg correction was considered significant. Pathway analysis for overall tumor versus distant lung tissue was performed with the PANTHER gene classification platform using the Cufflinks, DeSeq and EdgeR differentially expressed gene sets as input.

      Results:
      Twenty-five patients were studied, 19 males and 6 females, with a median age of 69 years. Ten were current smokers, 14 former smokers (>4 weeks before surgery) and 1 non-smoker. Eleven patients had squamous cell carcinoma, 14 adenocarcinoma. A heat map with the results for the most commonly targeted genes in NSCLC is represented in figure 1. When compared to distant lung tissue, PD-L1 was downregulated in tumor tissue of adenocarcinoma and active smokers, but not in squamous cell carcinoma or ex-smokers. Internal control of tumor tissue of squamous vs. adenocarcinoma and ex-smokers vs. active smokers shows an important trend towards a higher expression of PD-L1 in squamous cell carcinoma and ex-smokers in both Cufflinks and EdgeR algorithms. Additional pathway analysis revealed 188 differentially regulated pathways. The most notable were downregulation of VEGF signaling, angiogenesis and B and T cell activation in tumor tissue when compared to distant lung tissue. Figure 1



      Conclusion:
      Our first results show a higher expression of PD-L1 in squamous tumors than in adenocarcinoma and a higher expression in tumors of ex-smokers than in those of active smokers. This may have consequences for the therapeutic ratio with anti-PD-L1 treatment. Downregulation of VEGFR-genes in tumor tissue was observed across almost all conditions. We will make this data more complete by adding methylation data as well as immunohistochemistry for protein localization.

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