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Juan Diego De-Maya-Girones



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    MA04 - Models and Biomarkers (ID 122)

    • Event: WCLC 2019
    • Type: Mini Oral Session
    • Track: Biology
    • Presentations: 1
    • Now Available
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      MA04.03 - Lung Tumorspheres Characterization Reveals Cancer Stem-Like Cells Potential Targets and Prognostic Markers in Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer (Now Available) (ID 2269)

      13:30 - 15:00  |  Author(s): Juan Diego De-Maya-Girones

      • Abstract
      • Presentation
      • Slides

      Background

      Non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) is the leading cause of death cancer-related worldwide due to late diagnosis and high resistance against treatments. This resistance has been associated to cancer stem-like cells (CSCs), a highly tumorigenic subpopulation for which the identification of targets and biomarkers is still under development.

      Method

      Tissue samples from 8 NSCLC patients were successfully established and cultured using a sphere-forming assay for CSCs enrichment. Adherent counterparts were used as differentiated control cells. Proliferation, chemorresistance, invasion and differentiation capacities were tested in vitro, whereas tumor initiation capacity was determined in vivo. The expression of 44 CSCs-related genes was assessed by qPCR and protein expression of the best contributors to distinguish adherent cells from tumorspheres was determined by immunoblot and immunofluorescence. The prognostic role of these genes was evaluated in a cohort of 661 resected NSCLC patients from TCGA and validated in an independent cohort of 114 resected lung adenocarcinoma patients.

      Result

      Patient-derived tumorspheres showed unlimited exponential growth, high resistance against chemotherapy, great invasion and differentiation capacities in vitro in addition to a higher tumorigenic potential than adherent cells in vivo. The expression of 17 genes was significantly overexpressed in lung tumorspheres, being NANOG, NOTCH3, CD44, CDKN1A, SNAI1, and ITGA6 the best contributors. Proteins encoded by these genes were consistently increased in tumorspheres from adenocarcinoma patients and showed differential localization and expression patterns. The expression of CDKN1A, SNAI1 and ITGA6 was associated to prognosis based on Cox regression analysis (Z-score > 1.5), so their absolute regression coefficients from a multivariate model were used to calculate a gene expression score. Kaplan-Meier survival analysis showed that patients with high score have shorter OS in the entire cohort [37.7 vs. 60.4 mo., p = 0.001] and the adenocarcinoma subcohort [36.6 vs. 53.5 mo., p = 0.003], but not in squamous cell carcinoma one. Multivariate analysis indicated that this gene expression score was an independent biomarker of prognosis for OS in both, the entire cohort [HR: 1.498; 95% CI, 1.167-1.922; p = 0.001] and the adenocarcinoma subcohort [HR: 1.869; 95% CI, 1.275-2.738; p = 0.001]. The prognostic value of this score was confirmed in an independent cohort of 114 lung adenocarcinoma patients (42.90 vs. NR mo, p = 0.020).

      Conclusion

      Proteins encoded by NANOG, NOTCH3, CD44, CDKN1A, SNAI1, and ITGA6 are potential targets against lung CSCs. Elevated gene expression levels of CDKN1A, SNAI1 and ITGA6 are associated with worse prognosis.

      Funded by CB16/12/00350 from CIBEROnc, PI12-02838, and PI15-00753 from ISCIII and Fundacion Arnal Planelles.

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