AstraZeneca.

Crizotinib was highly active at treating lung cancer in patients with a ROS1 rearrangement, suggesting that patients with lung adenocarcinomas should be tested for ROS1. Prospective clinical trials with crizotinib and other ROS1 inhibitors are ongoing or planned.

By unlocking antitumor immunity, antibodies targeting programmed cell death 1 (PD-1) exhibit impressive clinical results in non-small cell lung cancer, underlining the strong interactions between tumor and immune cells. However, factors that can robustly predict long-lasting responses are still needed. We performed in-depth immune profiling of lung adenocarcinoma using an integrative analysis based on immunohistochemistry, flow-cytometry, and transcriptomic data. Tumor mutational status was investigated using next-generation sequencing. The response to PD-1 blockers was analyzed from a prospective cohort according to tumor mutational profiles and PD-L1 expression, and a public clinical database was used to validate the results obtained. We showed that distinct combinations of , and mutations were major determinants of the tumor immune profile (TIP) and of the expression of PD-L1 by malignant cells. Indeed, the presence of mutations without co-occurring or alterations (-mut/--WT), independently of mutations, identified the group of tumors with the highest CD8 T-cell density and PD-L1 expression. In this tumor subtype, pathways related to T-cell chemotaxis, immune cell cytotoxicity, and antigen processing were upregulated. Finally, a prolonged progression-free survival (PFS: HR = 0.32; 95% CI, 0.16-0.63, < 0.001) was observed in anti-PD-1-treated patients harboring -mut/--WT tumors. This clinical benefit was even more remarkable in patients with associated strong PD-L1 expression. Our study reveals that different combinations of , and mutations, together with PD-L1 expression by tumor cells, represent robust parameters to identify best responders to PD-1 blockade. .

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Despite major advances, non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) remains the major cause of cancer-related death in developed countries. Metastasis and drug resistance are the main factors contributing to relapse and death. Epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT) is a complex molecular and cellular process involved in tissue remodelling that was extensively studied as an actor of tumour progression, metastasis and drug resistance in many cancer types and in lung cancers. Here we described with an emphasis on NSCLC how the changes in signalling pathways, transcription factors expression or microRNAs that occur in cancer promote EMT. Understanding the biology of EMT will help to define reversing process and treatment strategies. We will see that this complex mechanism is related to inflammation, cell mobility and stem cell features and that it is a dynamic process. The existence of intermediate phenotypes and tumour heterogeneity may be debated in the literature concerning EMT markers, EMT signatures and clinical consequences in NSCLC. However, given the role of EMT in metastasis and in drug resistance the development of EMT inhibitors is an interesting approach to counteract tumour progression and drug resistance. This review describes EMT involvement in cancer with an emphasis on NSCLC and microRNA regulation.

Intratumoral immune cell densities (mDCs, CD8 T cells, neutrophils, macrophages) were significantly associated with molecular alterations in adenocarcinoma underlying the interactions between cancer cells and their microenvironment.

STK11 is commonly mutated in lung cancer. In light of recent experimental data showing that specific STK11 mutants could acquire oncogenic activities due to the synthesis of a short STK11 isoform, we investigated whether this new classification of STK11 mutants could help refine its role as a prognostic marker.We conducted a retrospective high-throughput genotyping study in 567 resected non-squamous non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients. STK11 exons 1 or 2 mutations (STK11 ex1-2 ) with potential oncogenic activity were analyzed separately from exons 3 to 9 (STK11 ex3-9 ). STK11 ex1-2 and STK11 ex3-9 mutations occurred in 5% and 14% of NSCLC. STK11 mutated patients were younger (P = .01) and smokers (P< .0001). STK11 mutations were significantly associated with KRAS and inversely with EGFR mutations. After a median follow-up of 7.2 years (95%CI 6.8-.4), patients with STK11 ex1-2 mutation had a median OS of 24 months (95%CI 15-57) as compared to 69 months (95%CI 56-93) for wild-type (log-rank, P = .005) and to 91 months (95%CI 57-unreached) for STK11 ex3-9 mutations (P = .003). In multivariate analysis, STK11 ex1-2 mutations remained associated with a poor prognosis (P = .002). Results were validated in two public datasets. Western blots showed that STK11 ex1-2 mutated tumors expressed short STK11 isoforms. Finally using mRNAseq data from the TCGA cohort, we showed that a stroma-derived poor prognosis signature was enriched in STK11 ex1-2 mutated tumors. All together our results show that STK11 ex1-2 mutations delineate an aggressive subtype of lung cancer for which a targeted treatment through STK11 inhibition might offer new opportunities.

Targeted next-generation sequencing analyzed with the base-PER method represents a robust and low cost method to detect circulating tumor DNA in patients with cancer.