Abstract 4675: Detection of ALK, ROS1, and RET translocations in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients by intragenic differential expression analysis
Authors: Cheng Shih-Min , Barlan Cindy , Hantash Feras , Sanders Heather R. , Chan Patricia H. , Sulcova Vladimira , Sanidad Marc A. , Qu Kevin , Kelly Joann C. , Boyar Fatih Z. , Sferruzza Anthony D. , Waldman Frederic M. 
Published: May 2015

BACKGROUND: ALK, ROS1, and RET translocations are frequently detected in NSCLC patients. Crizotinib, a tyrosine kinase inhibitor (TKI), was approved by the FDA in 2011 to treat NSCLC in patients harboring ALK translocations as detected by an FDA-approved assay. However, the FDA-approved ALK FISH assay is technically challenging, with failures due to pre-analytic variables. Another approach, intragenic differential expression (IDE), detects translocations by comparing expression levels of the 5′ end with the 3′ end of target gene transcripts. In this study we developed and evaluated a rapid IDE assay to screen for ALK, ROS1, and RET translocations, independent of the fusion partner.

METHODS: A total of 419 samples (408 randomly-selected NSCLC clinical samples, ALK positive and ROS1 positive cell lines (2 each), and 7 previously-tested RET-positive clinical samples) were used to develop and evaluate performance characteristics of the IDE assays. To determine IDE scores, levels of ALK, ROS1, and RET expression were first determined by quantitative RT-PCR measurement of the 5′- and 3′- ends of the respective transcripts. The differences in expression levels were calculated as ΔCt (Ct5′ - Ct3′). High ΔCt values indicate presumptive presence of gene translocations. 212/408 NSCLC samples were analyzed by ALK FISH and EML4-ALK RT-PCR, and 196/408 samples were analyzed by EML4-ALK RT-PCR.

RESULTS: Thirty-one of the 408 (7.6%) clinical samples tested positive for ALK rearrangements by IDE. Among them, 20 were confirmed by FISH and/or EML4-ALK (true positive, 64.5%), while 11 were negative by FISH and/or EML4-ALK (false positive, 35.5%). One of 10 ALK FISH positive samples tested negative by both ALK IDE and EML4-ALK RT-PCR analysis (false negative), while one of 202 FISH-negative sample tested positive by both EML4-ALK and ALK IDE. ALK IDE exhibited 94.5% (189/200) concordance with ALK FISH and 96.0% (356/371) concordance with the EML4-ALK assay. For ROS1, both ROS1-positive cell lines and 4/408 (1.0%) NSCLC samples tested positive for ROS1 by IDE. Among the 4 IDE-positive NSCLC samples, 1 was confirmed by ROS1 FISH. For RET, all 7 known positives and 10/408 (2.5%) NSCLC samples tested positive by IDE. Three of six RET IDE positive NSCLC samples were confirmed by RET FISH. Overall, ALK, ROS1, and RET translocations were mutually exclusive in NSCLC patients. The lung IDE assay had a failure rate of 3.7%.

CONCLUSION: These findings demonstrate the feasibility of using IDE to detect ALK, ROS1, and RET gene translocations. These assays may have potential as a screening tool to select patients for further confirmation by FISH for TKI-targeted therapy. The IDE concept can be applied to a wide range of somatic translocations.

Citation Format: Shih-Min Cheng, Cindy Barlan, Feras Hantash, Heather R. Sanders, Patricia H. Chan, Vladimira Sulcova, Marc A. Sanidad, Kevin Qu, Joann C. Kelly, Fatih Z. Boyar, Anthony D. Sferruzza, Frederic M. Waldman. Detection of ALK, ROS1, and RET translocations in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients by intragenic differential expression analysis. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 105th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2014 Apr 5-9; San Diego, CA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2014;74(19 Suppl):Abstract nr 4675. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2014-4675