Abstract 2147: Decoding the natural biology of triple-negative breast cancer and response to chemotherapy by single-cell transcriptomics
Authors: Kumar Tapsi , Lin Yiyun , Yan Yun , Bai Shanshan , Li Jianzhuo , Tran Tuan , Hu Min , Ravenberg Elizabeth , Rauch Maia , Clayborn Alyson , Thompson Alastair , Huo Lei , Moulder Stacy , Yam Clinton , Navin Nicholas 
Published: April 2023

Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) is an aggressive subtype of breast cancer that lacks the expression of estrogen receptor (ER), progesterone receptor (PR) and HER2 and therefore have limited hormonal treatment options. Neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NAC) is backbone of treatment for TNBC, and about 50% of patients respond well leading to pathological complete response (pCR). However, the remaining patients develop resistance to NAC and progress to metastatic disease and poor survival in 1-2 years after the initial treatment. Previous studies have performed bulk RNA expression profiling of TNBC patients and identified 5-6 subgroups of patients, however these studies could not resolve expression programs at single cell resolution to distinguish between the tumor cells and different components of the tumor microenvironment (TME). Here we performed scRNA-seq of pre-treatment fresh core biopsy tissue samples from TNBC patients in the ARTEMIS clinical trial and compared these data between pCR and non-pCR patients to identify programs associated with response to NAC. We also compared these data to scRNA-seq data from patients with disease-free breast tissue to understand the basic biology of TNBC and identify cell types that are reprogrammed in malignant disease. Using the single cell tumor cell data, we identified 4 archetypes of TNBC which represent patient-level intertumor expression programs: luminal secretory-like (LS), basal/luminal-like (BL), immunoregulatory (IM), and luminal androgen receptor (LAR). Notably, the archetype BL was associated with non-pCR, while IM was associated with pCR. We further identified 13 metatraits, which are unique intratumoral expression programs that are shared across patients. Across the cancer cells, we identified 13 metatraits such as cell cycling, stress, hypoxia, interferon response, HLA, partial epithelial-mesenchymal transition, and endoplasmic reticulum stress, many of which corresponded to NAC response. In the immune compartment, we found 15 myeloid cell states, 14 T/NK cell states, and 6 B cell states, several of which corresponded to pCR/non-pCR. Similarly, in the stromal compartment, there were 4 fibroblast cell states, 4 pericyte cell states, and 7 endothelial cell subtypes, of which several cell states were associated with NAC response. Overall, these data report the natural biology of TNBC patients and malignant cell states that are reprogrammed in malignant disease, as well as their correspondence to NAC response, providing new data to predict which TNBC patients are likely to respond to chemotherapy.

Citation Format: Tapsi Kumar, Yiyun Lin, Yun Yan, Shanshan Bai, Jianzhuo Li, Tuan Tran, Min Hu, Elizabeth Ravenberg, Maia Rauch, Alyson Clayborn, Alastair Thompson, Lei Huo, Stacy Moulder, Clinton Yam, Nicholas Navin. Decoding the natural biology of triple-negative breast cancer and response to chemotherapy by single-cell transcriptomics [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2023; Part 1 (Regular and Invited Abstracts); 2023 Apr 14-19; Orlando, FL. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2023;83(7_Suppl):Abstract nr 2147.