Therapeutic activation of antitumour immunity by immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) is a significant advance in cancer medicine, not least due to the prospect of long-term remission. However, many patients are unresponsive to ICI therapy and may experience serious side effects; companion biomarkers are urgently needed to help inform ICI prescribing decisions. We present the IMMUNETS networks of gene coregulation in five key immune cell types, and application to interrogate control of nivolumab response in advanced melanoma cohorts. Results evidence a role for each of the IMMUNETS cell types in ICI response and in driving tumour clearance with independent cohorts from TCGA. As expected, ‘immune hot’ status, including T cell proliferation, confers good response to first line ICI therapy. Genes regulated in NK, dendritic and B cells are the most prominent discriminators of nivolumab response in patients that had previously progressed on another ICI. Multivariate analysis controlling for tumour stage and age highlights B cell genes as candidate prognostic biomarkers. IMMUNETS provide a resource for network biology, enabling context-specific analysis of immune components in orthogonal datasets. Overall, our results illuminate the relationship between the tumour microenvironment and clinical trajectories, with potential implications for precision medicine.
Cell identity is governed by gene expression, regulated by Transcription Factor (TF) binding at cisregulatory modules. We developed the NetNC software to decode the relationship between TF binding and the regulation of cognate target genes in cell decision-making; demonstrated on nine datasets for the Snail and Twist TFs, and also modENCODE 'HOT' regions. Results illuminated conserved molecular networks controlling development and disease, with implications for precision medicine. Predicted 'neutral' TF binding accounted for the majority (50% to ≥80%) of candidate target genes from statistically significant peaks and HOT regions had high functional coherence.Expression of orthologous functional TF targets discriminated breast cancer molecular subtypes and predicted novel tumour biology. We identified new gene functions and network modules including crosstalk with notch signalling and regulation of chromatin organisation, evidencing networks that reshape Waddington's landscape during epithelial remodelling. Predicted invasion roles were validated using a tractable cell model, supporting our computational approach.
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