Genomic evaluation of tumor mutational burden-high (TMB-H) versus TMB-low (TMB-L) metastatic breast cancer to reveal unique mutational features.
Authors: Sammons Sarah , Elliott Andrew , Force Jeremy Meyer , DeVito Nicholas C. , Marcom Paul Kelly , Swain Sandra M. , Tan Antoinette R. , Roussos Torres Evanthia T. , Zeng Jia , Khasraw Mustafa , Balko Justin M. , Korn Wolfgang Michael , Anders Carey K. 
Published: June 2021

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Background: Tumor mutational burden (TMB) has emerged as an imperfect biomarker of immune checkpoint inhibition (ICI) outcomes in solid tumors. Despite the approval for pembrolizumab in all TMB-high (TMB-H) solid tumors, the optimal clinical approach to TMB-H or hypermutated advanced/metastatic breast cancer (MBC) is unknown with sparse prospective data. We hypothesize that TMB-H MBC will have unique genomic alterations compared to TMB-low (TMB-L) breast cancer that could inform novel therapeutic approaches. Methods: Tumor samples (N = 5621) obtained from patients with MBC were analyzed by next-generation sequencing (NGS) of DNA (592-gene panel or whole exome sequencing) and RNA (whole transcriptome sequencing) at Caris Life Sciences (Phoenix, AZ). TMB was calculated based on recommendations from the Friends of Cancer Research TMB Harmonization Project (Merino et al., 2020), with the TMB-H threshold set to ≥ 10 muts/Mb. IHC was performed for PD-L1 (Ventana SP142 ≥1% immune cells). Deficient mismatch repair (dMMR)/high microsatellite instability (MSI-H) was tested by IHC and NGS, respectively. Results: TMB-H was identified in 8.2% (n = 461) of MBC samples, with similar frequencies observed across molecular subtypes (7.8-8.6%, p = 0.85): HR+/HER2- (n = 3087) 7.8%, HR+/HER2+ (n = 266) 8.3%, HR-/HER2+ (n = 179) 7.8%, TNBC (n = 1476) 8.6%. The frequency of TMB-H was significantly increased in lobular (16%) versus ductal (5%) MBC (p < 0.01). TMB-H samples were enriched in genitourinary (42%), soft tissue (20%), and gastrointestinal non-liver (16%) biopsy specimens. Compared to TMB-L tumors, TMB-H tumors exhibited significantly higher mutation rates for TP53 (60 v 52%), PIK3CA (55 vs 31%), ARID1A (34 vs 11%), CDH1 (27 vs 11%), NF1 (22 vs 9%), RB1 (14 vs 5%), KMT2C (12 vs 7%), PTEN (12 vs 7%), ERBB2 (7 vs 2.9%), and PALB2 (3.3 vs 1%) genes (p < 0.05 each). Copy number alteration and fusion rates did not differ between TMB-H and TMB-L breast cancers. PI3K/AKT/MTOR, TP53, Histone/Chromatin remodeling, DNA damage repair (DDR), RAS, and cell cycle pathway alterations were detected in > 25% TMB-H MBCs (p < 0.05 each). dMMR/MSI-High (7.2 vs 0.3%, p < 0.01) and PD-L1 positivity (36 vs 28%, p < 0.05) frequencies were significantly increased in TMB-H tumors. DNA signature analyses including APOBEC and homologous recombination repair deficiency, as well as gene expression profiling to assess immune-related signatures and tumor microenvironment are underway. Conclusions: TMB-H breast cancers contain a unique genomic profile enriched with targetable mutations such as PIK3CA, ARID1A, NF1, PTEN, ERBB2, and PALB2. Concurrent predictive biomarkers of response to immune checkpoint inhibition such as MSI-H and PDL-1 positivity are also more prevalent in TMB-H MBC. These findings suggest novel combination strategies within TMB-H MBC could be explored.