Abstract P5-14-11: Rearrangements in CDH1, ESR1, and ERBB2 are commonly observed in breast cancer and may influence diagnosis and treatment
Authors: Sokol Ethan , Jin Dexter , Ross Jeffrey S. , LEE ADRIAN V. , Oesterreich Steffi 
Published: March 2023

Background The status of CDH1, ERBB2, and ESR1 is important for the diagnostic and treatment workup for patients with breast cancer. Most alterations in these genes occur in the form of short variants (eg missense and indel alterations) or copy number alterations (eg amplifications of ERBB2 or deletions in CDH1). The prevalence and characteristics of rearrangement events have been understudied. Materials and Methods: Comprehensive genomic profiling using a hybrid-capture based approach was performed on 44,842 breast carcinomas during the course of routine clinical care (FoundationOne® or FoundationOne®CDx) examining all classes of alterations in up to 395 genes, including CDH1, ESR1, and ERBB2. All rearrangements were included in the analysis (known/likely pathogenic and variants of uncertain significance). Estrogen receptor status was extracted from pathology reports for a subset of samples. Results: Rearrangements in CDH1, ESR1, and ERBB2 were observed in 0.26% (115/44842), 0.34% (153/44842), and 1.33% (598/44842) of breast cancer samples, respectively. As expected, CDH1 rearrangements were most common in invasive lobular carcinoma (ILC) (0.64%; 16/2516) though events were observed in samples originally submitted as invastive ductal carcinoma (IDC) (0.16%; 26/15,836), suggesting possible misdiagnosis. CDH1 rearrangements were predominantly loss of function consisting of large deletions, inversions, and truncation events. ESR1 rearrangements were observed at the highest frequency in ER+/HER2- tumors (0.58%) and were never seen in ER-/HER2- and ER-/HER2+ tumors. ESR1 rearrangements were observed with a variety of partners, with recurrent events with CCDC170, SYNE1, RMND1, PLEKHG1, ARMT1, MTHFD1L, and ZBTB2. Consistent with a possible role in therapy resistance, ESR1 rearrangements were enriched in metastatic samples relative to those biopsied from the breast (OR = 2.25; p = 8E-05). ERBB2 rearrangement events were commonly observed in HER2 amplified tumors (13.4%) and rarely in other subtypes (0.12% in ER+/HER2- and 0.28% in ER-/HER2-). Most of the events were intra-chromosomal and typically represented non-fusion duplication fragments that may have generated the ERBB2 amplification. Fusions were much rarer. Out of the 598 rearrangement events, only 18 were predicted to create in-frame and in-strand fusion products retaining the HER2 kinase domain following manual review of the events. Most fusion events were unique, though a fusion with IKZF3 was seen recurrently (n=2). Conclusions Rearrangement events in diagnostically important breast cancer genes (CDH1, ESR1, and ERBB2) were commonly observed in breast cancer with subtype-specific enrichment. Since these alterations have implications in disease diagnosis and therapy response (eg endocrine therapy resistance), comprehensive genomic profiling can provide value in breast cancer care.

Citation Format: Ethan Sokol, Dexter Jin, Jeffrey S. Ross, ADRIAN V. LEE, Steffi Oesterreich. Rearrangements in CDH1, ESR1, and ERBB2 are commonly observed in breast cancer and may influence diagnosis and treatment [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 2022 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium; 2022 Dec 6-10; San Antonio, TX. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2023;83(5 Suppl):Abstract nr P5-14-11.