Transcriptional Profiling of Melanoma Sentinel Nodes Identify Patients with Poor Outcome and Reveal an Association of CD30+ T Lymphocytes with Progression
Abstract:Sentinel lymph nodes set the stance of the immune system to a localized tumor and are often the first site to be colonized by neoplastic cells that metastasize. To investigate how the presence of neoplastic cells in sentinel lymph nodes may trigger pathways associated with metastatic progression, we analyzed the transcriptional profiles of archival sentinel node biopsy specimens obtained from melanoma patients. Biopsies from positive nodes were selected for comparable tumor infiltration, presence or absence of… Show more
“…RNA extraction, quality control, and hybridization on a Whole Genome-cDNAmediated Annealing, Selection, extension, and Ligation (WG-DASL) microarray were performed essentially as previously described (3). Raw data were deposited with accession number GSE65021 on GEO repository (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/ geo/).…”
Purpose: To identify the tumor portrait of the minority of head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) patients with recurrent-metastatic (RM) disease who upon treatment with platinum-based chemotherapy plus cetuximab present a long-lasting response.Experimental Design: The gene expression of pretreatment samples from 40 HNSCC-RM patients, divided in two groups [14 long-progression-free survival (PFS) and 26 short-PFS (median ¼ 19 and 3 months, respectively)], was associated with PFS and was challenged against a dataset from metastatic colon cancer patients treated with cetuximab. For biologic analysis, we performed functional and subtype association using gene set enrichment analysis, associated biology across all currently available HNSCC signatures, and inferred drug sensitivity using data from the Cancer Genomic Project.Results: The identified genomic profile exhibited a significant predictive value that was essentially confirmed in the single publicly available dataset of cetuximab-treated patients. The main divergence between long-and short-PFS groups was based on developmental/differentiation status. The long-PFS patients are characterized by basal subtype traits such as strong EGFR signaling phenotype and hypoxic differentiation, further validated by the significantly higher association with the hypoxia metagene. The short-PFS patients presented a strong activation of RAS signaling confirmed in an in vitro model of two isogenic HNSCC cell lines sensitive or resistant to cetuximab. The predicted drug sensitivity for all four EGFR inhibitors was higher in long-versus short-PFS patients (P range: <0.0022-1eÀ07).Conclusions: Our data uncover the biology behind response to platinum-based chemotherapy plus cetuximab in RM-HNSCC cancer and may have translational implications improving treatment selection.
“…56 A prospective study of Foxp3 + regulatory T cells and DCs in melanoma SNs showed correlations between node positivity and increased regulatory T cells or decreased dendritic cells. 57 Vallacchi et al, 58 using gene expression profiling of melanoma SNs and by unsupervised analysis of gene expression profiles, found "immune response" to be a major gene ontogeny represented.…”
Section: Evidence Of Sn Immune Modulation In Melanoma and Breast Cancermentioning
Sentinel lymph nodes (SLNs), the initial site of regional metastases, directly receive lymph containing immune-modulatory cytokines and tumor cells from primary melanomas. Immune-suppressed SLNs are ideal for studies of tissue susceptibility to metastases. They show reduced antigen-presenting dendritic cells, activated T cells, high endothelial venules, and transvenular immigration of T cells. Tumor-induced immune suppression contributes to establishment of nodal metastases. SLNs may serve as an effective model to study reversal of tumor-induced immune suppression. We reviewed this topic in Nature Reviews of Immunology in 2006. We here summarize the Nature paper and provide additional results from ongoing studies and the recent literature.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.