Abstract 6071: Whole-exome RNA sequencing of metastatic synovial sarcomas reveals heterogeneous transcriptomic profile and targetable co-alterations: Cohort study from the French Sarcoma Group
Authors: Vanacker Helene , Brahmi Mehdi , Meitour Yannick Le , Bollard Julien , Attignon Valery , Meurgey Alexandra , Jean-Denis Myriam , Tonon Laurie , Pokras Shibani , Klohe Erika , Nathenson Michael , Blouch Kristin , Eleftheriadou Ioanna , Blay Jean-Yves , Tirode Franck , Dufresne Armelle 
Published: April 2023

Introduction: Synovial Sarcoma (SS) is a rare and aggressive disease that predominantly occurs in young adult. SS are characterized by a pathognomonic t(X:18) translocation leading SS18: SSX1/2/4 fusion. Small studies (n&lt;100) described molecular background beyond this fusion in patients and the transcriptomic profile of SS remains poorly known. The aim of our study is to provide a large cohort analyzing transcriptomic and co-alterations to better understand and treat SS.

Methods: We present a clinico-biological cohort study including all adult patients with histologically confirmed diagnosis of afvanced SS from January 2000, registered in the French Sarcoma database (NETSARC+) and with available formalin-fixed paraffin embedded (FFPE) archival tumor samples and clinical data. FFPE tumor samples were analyzed by dedicated whole-exome RNA-sequencing (WERS) to assess transcriptomic, small nucleotide variation (SNV) and fusions.

Results: 122 patients (133 samples) met the study criteria, including 11 patients with paired primary-metastatic tumor samples. Clinical characteristics (age, sex, tumor grade, primary and metastasis site distribution) were consistent with expected SS population. The SS18:SSX1/2/4 fusion was found in all patient (90% by WERS and if negative, by FISH). Unsupervised analyses of transcriptomic data by principal component analyses, hierarchical sample clustering or UMAP revealed heterogeneity in gene expression. Clinical factors (age, sex, grade, tumor type, complete response to treatment, survival) did not correlate with transcriptomic profiles. Immune cell analyses confirmed a low infiltration of immune cells, notably poor in CD8+ T cells. Cancer testis antigens such as NYESO-1, MAGE-A4 were both expressed with a heterogeneous co-expression of other CTAs across samples. In the 11 primary-metastatic paired- samples, no gene pathway was found differentially expressed between primary and metastatic samples cohort with the exception of lung tissue specific genes. Comparing chemotherapy-naïve versus pre-treated samples did not identify differential expression of specific genes across samples. Single Nucleotide Variant analyses was reliable on 84% FFPE samples and revealed an overall low Tumor Mutational Burden with some samples harboring canonical oncogene pathogenic mutations of BTK, RAS, NF1, RB1 as well as in DNA repair pathway(15% spanning over ATM ATR,CHK2, BRCA1/2 PALB2 CHK2, FANCM, RAD51), PI3K pathways (PI3KCA E545K) and other poorly described in SS.

Conclusion: Investigating the largest cohort of metastatic SS by whole-exome RNA-sequencing, revealed Synovial Sarcoma, usually classified as “simple genomic sarcoma” is a translocation-related sarcoma harboring heterogeneous transcriptomic and numerous SNV co-alterations including targetable mutations.

Citation Format: Helene Vanacker, Mehdi Brahmi, Yannick Le Meitour, Julien Bollard, Valery Attignon, Alexandra Meurgey, Myriam Jean-Denis, Laurie Tonon, Shibani Pokras, Erika Klohe, Michael Nathenson, Kristin Blouch, Ioanna Eleftheriadou, Jean-Yves Blay, Franck Tirode, Armelle Dufresne. Whole-exome RNA sequencing of metastatic synovial sarcomas reveals heterogeneous transcriptomic profile and targetable co-alterations: Cohort study from the French Sarcoma Group. [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 6071.