Evidence map›Paper›PMID 32620126›Full record

ArticleJournal of translational medicine2020

Presence of a 34-gene signature is a favorable prognostic marker in squamous non-small cell lung carcinoma.

W S M E Theelen, O Krijgsman, K Monkhorst, T Kuilman, D D G C Peters, S Cornelissen, M A Ligtenberg, S M Willems, J L G Blaauwgeers, C J M van Noesel and 3 more

Open access · goldAbstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Journal of translational medicine, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 8 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
8citing papers in PubMed
1.5field-weighted citation impact, top 14% of its field
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

8 citing papers in PubMed, 13 citations in OpenAlex.

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4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

13 authors at 5 institutions in 1 country.

W S M E TheelenDepartment of Thoracic Oncology, The Netherlands Cancer Institute, Postbus 90203, 1006 BE, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. w.theelen@nki.nl.ORCID 0000-0001-9772-0511
O KrijgsmanDivision of Molecular Oncology & Immunology, The Netherlands Cancer Institute, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
K MonkhorstDivision of Pathology, The Netherlands Cancer Institute, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
T KuilmanDivision of Molecular Oncology & Immunology, The Netherlands Cancer Institute, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
D D G C PetersCore Facility Molecular Pathology & Biobanking, Department of Molecular Pathology, The Netherlands Cancer Institute, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
S CornelissenCore Facility Molecular Pathology & Biobanking, Department of Molecular Pathology, The Netherlands Cancer Institute, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
M A LigtenbergDivision of Molecular Oncology & Immunology, The Netherlands Cancer Institute, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
S M WillemsDepartment of Pathology, University Medical Centre Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands.
J L G BlaauwgeersDepartment of Pathology, OLVG LAB BV, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
C J M van NoeselDepartment of Pathology, Academic Medical Center, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
D S PeeperDivision of Molecular Oncology & Immunology, The Netherlands Cancer Institute, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
M M van den HeuvelDepartment of Pulmonology, Radboud University Medical Center, Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
K SchulzeOncology Biomarker Development, Genentech Inc, South San Francisco, USA.
The Netherlands Cancer Institute · NLAmsterdam UMC Location University of Amsterdam · NLOLVG · NLRadboud University Nijmegen · NLUniversity Medical Center Groningen · NL

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

backgroundThe tumor immune microenvironment is a heterogeneous entity. Gene expression analysis allows us to perform comprehensive immunoprofiling and may assist in dissecting the different components of the immune infiltrate. As gene expression analysis also provides information regarding tumor cells, differences in interactions between the immune system and specific tumor characteristics can also be explored. This study aims to gain further insights in the composition of the tumor immune infiltrate and to correlate these components to histology and overall survival in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).

methodsArchival tissues from 530 early stage, resected NSCLC patients with annotated tumor and patient characteristics were analyzed using the NanoString nCounter Analysis system.

resultsUnsupervised clustering of the samples was mainly driven by the overall level of inflammation, which was not correlated with survival in this patient set. Adenocarcinoma (AD) showed a significantly higher degree of immune infiltration compared to squamous cell carcinoma (SCC). A 34-gene signature, which did not correlate with the overall level of immune infiltration, was identified and showed an OS benefit in SCC. Strikingly, this benefit was not observed in AD. This difference in OS in SCC specifically was confirmed in two independent NSCLC cohorts. The highest correlation between expression of the 34-gene signature and specific immune cell populations was observed for NK cells, but although a plausible mechanism for NK cell intervention in tumor growth could be established in SCC over AD, this could not be translated back to immunohistochemistry, which showed that NK cell infiltration is scarce irrespective of histology.

conclusionsThese findings suggest that the ability of immune cell infiltration and the interaction between tumor and immune cells may be different between AD and SCC histology and that a subgroup of SCC tumors seems more susceptible to Natural Killer cell recognition and killing, whereas this may not occur in AD tumors. A highly sensitive technique like NanoString was able to detect this subgroup based on a 34-gene signature, but further research will be needed to assist in explaining the biological rationale of such low-level expression signatures.

Indexed as

AdenocarcinomaCarcinoma, Non-Small-Cell LungCarcinoma, Squamous CellLung NeoplasmsHumansPrognosisTumor MicroenvironmentGene expressionGene signatureImmunoprofilingNSCLC

Identifiers

PMID32620126
PMCPMC7333331
OpenAlexW3039562861

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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.