Tumor microenvironment gene expression profiles associated to complete pathological response and disease progression in resectable NSCLC patients treated with neoadjuvant chemoimmunotherapy
Authors: Casarrubios Marta , Provencio Mariano , Nadal Ernest , Insa Amelia , del Rosario García-Campelo María , Lázaro-Quintela Martín , Dómine Manuel , Majem Margarita , Rodriguez-Abreu Delvys , Martinez-Marti Alex , De Castro Carpeño Javier , Cobo Manuel , López Vivanco Guillermo , Del Barco Edel , Bernabé Reyes , Viñolas Nuria , Barneto Aranda Isidoro , Massuti Bartomeu , Sierra-Rodero Belén , Martinez-Toledo Cristina , Fernández-Miranda Ismael , Serna-Blanco Roberto , Romero Atocha , Calvo Virginia , Cruz-Bermúdez Alberto 
Published: September 2022

Background

Neoadjuvant chemoimmunotherapy for non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) has improved pathological responses and survival rates compared with chemotherapy alone, leading to Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval of nivolumab plus chemotherapy for resectable stage IB-IIIA NSCLC (AJCC 7th edition) without ALK or EGFR alterations. Unfortunately, a considerable percentage of tumors do not completely respond to therapy, which has been associated with early disease progression. So far, it is impossible to predict these events due to lack of knowledge. In this study, we characterized the gene expression profile of tumor samples to identify new biomarkers and mechanisms behind tumor responses to neoadjuvant chemoimmunotherapy and disease recurrence after surgery.

Methods

Tumor bulk RNA sequencing was performed in 16 pretreatment and 36 post-treatment tissue samples from 41 patients with resectable stage IIIA NSCLC treated with neoadjuvant chemoimmunotherapy from NADIM trial. A panel targeting 395 genes related to immunological processes was used. Tumors were classified as complete pathological response (CPR) and non-CPR, based on the total absence of viable tumor cells in tumor bed and lymph nodes tested at surgery. Differential-expressed genes between groups and pathway enrichment analysis were assessed using DESeq2 and gene set enrichment analysis. CIBERSORTx was used to estimate the proportions of immune cell subtypes.

Results

CPR tumors had a stronger pre-established immune infiltrate at baseline than non-CPR, characterized by higher levels ofIFNG, GZMB, NKG7, and M1 macrophages, all with a significant area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (ROC) >0.9 for CPR prediction. A greater effect of neoadjuvant therapy was also seen in CPR tumors with a reduction of tumor markers and IFNγ signaling after treatment. Additionally, the higher expression of several genes, includingAKT1, BST2, OAS3,orCD8B; or higher dendritic cells and neutrophils proportions in post-treatment non-CPR samples, were associated with relapse after surgery. Also, high pretreatment PD-L1 and tumor mutational burden levels influenced the post-treatment immune landscape with the downregulation of proliferation markers and type I interferon signaling molecules in surgery samples.

Conclusions

Our results reinforce the differences between CPR and non-CPR responses, describing possible response and relapse immune mechanisms, opening the possibility of therapy personalization of immunotherapy-based regimens in the neoadjuvant setting of NSCLC.