Abstract 6616: Functional hotness score generated by representative functional cytotoxic T-lymphocytes predicts long-term survival of triple-negative breast cancer independently to the tumor mutational burden
Authors: Katsuta Eriko , Yan Li , Opyrchal Mateusz , Kalinski Pawel , Takabe Kazuaki 
Published: September 2020

Background: Cytotoxic T-lymphocytes (CTLs) infiltration in a bulk tumor is a positive prognostic factor in breast cancer. CTL recognition is believed to react to mutation-induced neoantigens, thus, higher tumor mutation burden (TMB) is considered as an important predictor of tumor immunogenicity and response to immunotherapy. Although majority of breast cancer have low tumor mutation burden (TMB), triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) has higher TMB compared to other breast cancer subtypes. However, it is unclear if the prognostic value high CTL infiltration depends on the TMB as the primary driver of enhanced anti-cancer immunity or represents an independent prognostic marker which can be used as a complement to TMB to predict patients' outcomes. CTLs are identified by CD8 marker, is encoded by CD8A. Granzyme B (GZMB) is a serine protease that is secreted by functionally-active CTLs to induce apoptosis of the target cells. CXCL10 is a chemokine which selectively attracts activated CTLs into subsets of other cancers; but its role in breast cancer remains unknown. We investigated if TNBC infiltrated with high levels of functional CTLs, so called “hot tumors”, have improved survival independently of their TMB.

Methods: Utilizing The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) breast cancer cohort, we established Functional Hotness Score (FHS), based on the CD8A, GZMB and CXCL10 gene expression levels of bulk tumors. Total of 4149 breast cancer patients from publicly available multiple cohorts were analyzed to assess FHS and breast cancer patient prognosis as well as distinct immunity markers.

Results: FHS predicted the breast cancer patient survival better than each consisting gene. The breast cancer patients with high FHS tumors showed significantly better survival in the testing cohort (TCGA), which was further confirmed in the validation cohort (METABRIC). FHS was higher in the primary breast cancer tissues with metastasis compared to that without metastasis in TCGA. Further, FHS was higher in the metastatic tumors compared to the primary tumors in GSE110590. Among breast cancer subtypes, TNBC showed highest FHS compared to other subtypes in testing TCGA, which was validated in the METABRIC cohort. The patients with high FHS tumor demonstrated significantly better long-term survival than that with low FHS only in the hormone receptor (HR)-negative breast cancers, but not in the HR-positive tumors. The high FHS TNBCs showed higher not only CD8-positive T cell infiltration, but also a broader type-1 anti-cancer immunity. To investigate if FHS predicts patient survival independent of TMB, the patients were divided into high and low TMB groups. Interestingly, the higher FHS patients showed better prognosis not only in the high TMB group but also in the low TMB among TNBC patients. The combination of high TMB with high FHS identified the unique subset of the patients who did not recur over time.

Conclusion: In conclusion, TNBC with higher FHS based on the expression levels of CD8A, GZMB and CXCL10 showed improved prognosis with higher anti-cancer immunity regardless of TMB, and constituting an independent prognostic marker of survival, particularly when combined with TMB.

Citation Format: Eriko Katsuta, Li Yan, Mateusz Opyrchal, Pawel Kalinski, Kazuaki Takabe. Functional hotness score generated by representative functional cytotoxic T-lymphocytes predicts long-term survival of triple-negative breast cancer independently to the tumor mutational burden [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research 2020; 2020 Apr 27-28 and Jun 22-24. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2020;80(16 Suppl):Abstract nr 6616.