Abstract PO1-13-04: Distinct immune signatures discriminate between patients defined as exceptional survivors of metastatic breast cancer compared to those with rapidly progressing treatment resistant breast cancers
Authors: Helen Kakkassery, Thanussuyah Alaguthurai, Zuza Kozik, Paul Buckley, Ruifang Lu, Esme Carpenter, Rosalind Graham, Gheed Alhity, Farhana Hossain, Sadiyah Mukhtar, Syed Haider, Jyoti Choudhary, Sheeba Irshad
Journal: Cancer Research (2024)

Abstract Background: "Atypical responders" can encompass three sub- categories of patients: "exceptional responders" (those with an unusually favourable treatment response), "rapid progressors" (unusually poor or no response), and "exceptional/long-term survivors" (outlived initial prognosis). Here, we aim to investigate the drivers of immune surveillance mechanisms (local, lymphoid and peripheral) and the nature of immunological tumour recognition in exceptional survivors of stage 4 metastatic disease following standard-of-care chemo- and targeted therapies. Methods: We conducted a complementary multi-platform immune profiling study to define differences in the phenotypic immune landscape including mass-spectrometry-based proteomics on peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs), multiplex cytokine profiling of patient serum, and high-dimensional flow cytometry on whole blood samples. By staining 500μl of whole blood using 2 panels, 353 immune-cell-related parameters were obtained for comparisons among the following groups: "exceptional survivors," "exceptional responders," "rapid progressors," "non-exceptional metastatic patients," "early breast cancer patients," and "healthy volunteers". Patients were matched for age, breast cancer receptor status, and sites of metastases where possible. Results: Preliminary analysis of serum biomarkers and proteome of the PBMCs of the exceptional survivors showed elevated levels of NK-cell-related proteins such as KCTD10 and RBBP7. Flow cytometry analysis revealed the presence of increased activated CD56dim NK cells, CD56bright NK cells, and central memory (CM) (CD45RA-CD27+) CD8 T cells in both the exceptional survivors and the rapid progressors. However, expression of CD25 appears to be the main mode of activation in rapid progressors compared with increased NKG2D expression in exceptional survivors. Additionally, activation of the unconventional gd T cells was evident in both groups with terminally differentiated effector memory cells re-expressing CD45RA (TEMRA) Vd1 cell predominating in the exceptional survivors. In the rapid progressors, the increased CD25+ TEMRA Vd2 cells coupled with elevated serum IL-17A and IL-1b suggest their ability to generate IL-17. Th2 cytokines, IL-5 and IL-13 were also enriched in rapid progressors and concomitant increase in CD25+ Th2 cells reveals a strong Th2-driven immune signature in these patients. Finally increased CD86+ atypical double negative (DN) B cells, mostly comprised of the DN2 subset were also significantly enriched in the rapid progressors compared to the exceptional survivors where DN1 B cells were prevalent. Conclusion: The multi-platform approach to investigating immune responses present in atypical responders has identified several distinct immunophenotypes in which the extreme outliers differ in their potential immune surveillance mechanisms. Functional validation of these findings through activation and cytotoxicity assays is currently underway and future work aims to understand the spatial biology of these circulating immune cells within the context of their primary tumours, metastases, and lymph nodes. Citation Format: Helen Kakkassery, Thanussuyah Alaguthurai, Zuza Kozik, Paul Buckley, Ruifang Lu, Esme Carpenter, Rosalind Graham, Gheed Alhity, Farhana Hossain, Sadiyah Mukhtar, Syed Haider, Jyoti Choudhary, Sheeba Irshad. Distinct immune signatures discriminate between patients defined as exceptional survivors of metastatic breast cancer compared to those with rapidly progressing treatment resistant breast cancers [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 2023 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium; 2023 Dec 5-9; San Antonio, TX. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2024;84(9 Suppl):Abstract nr PO1-13-04.