Distinct co-acquired alterations and genomic evolution during TKI treatment in non-small-cell lung cancer patients with or without acquired T790M mutation

Oncogene. 2020 Feb;39(9):1846-1859. doi: 10.1038/s41388-019-1104-z. Epub 2019 Nov 21.

Abstract

EGFR-mutant non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients inevitably develop drug resistance when treated with EGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs). Systematic genetic analysis is important to understand drug-resistant mechanisms; however, the clinical significance of co-occurring genetic alterations at baseline, co-acquired mutations at progressive disease (PD), and the clonal evolution remain underinvestigated. We performed targeted sequencing of pre-treatment and PD tumor samples from 54 EGFR-mutant NSCLC patients. Ten additional patients were sequenced using whole-exome sequencing to infer the clonal evolution patterns. We observed a domain-dependent effect of PIK3CA mutation at baseline on patient progression-free survival (PFS). In addition, at baseline, 9q34.3/19p13.3 (NOTCH1/STK11/GNA11) showed a co-deletion pattern, which was associated with a significantly worse PFS (p = 0.00079). T790M-postive patients with other concurrent acquired oncogenic mutations had a significantly shorter PFS (p = 0.005). Besides acquired T790M mutation, chromosomal instability (CIN) related genes, including AURKA and TP53 alterations, were the most frequently acquired events. CIN significantly increased during TKI treatment in T790M-negative patients and is a candidate resistance mechanism to the first-generation TKIs. Clonal evolution analyses suggest that the composition and relationship among resistant subclones, particularly relationship with T790M subclone, affect patients' outcomes. Overall, our findings of novel co-occurring alterations and clonal evolution patterns can be served as predictive biomarkers to stratify patients and help to better understand the drug-resistant mechanism to TKIs.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Adult
  • Aged
  • Aged, 80 and over
  • Biomarkers, Tumor / genetics
  • Carcinoma, Non-Small-Cell Lung / drug therapy
  • Carcinoma, Non-Small-Cell Lung / genetics*
  • Carcinoma, Non-Small-Cell Lung / pathology
  • Drug Resistance, Neoplasm / genetics*
  • ErbB Receptors / genetics
  • Evolution, Molecular*
  • Exome Sequencing
  • Female
  • Follow-Up Studies
  • Gene Expression Regulation, Neoplastic / drug effects*
  • Genomics
  • High-Throughput Nucleotide Sequencing
  • Humans
  • Lung Neoplasms / drug therapy
  • Lung Neoplasms / genetics*
  • Lung Neoplasms / pathology
  • Male
  • Middle Aged
  • Prognosis
  • Protein Kinase Inhibitors / therapeutic use*
  • Survival Rate

Substances

  • Biomarkers, Tumor
  • Protein Kinase Inhibitors
  • EGFR protein, human
  • ErbB Receptors