Comparison of T cell infiltration in hepatocellular carcinoma between whole exome and transcriptome sequencing data.

Authors

null

Xing Lv

Hepatic Surgery Center, Tongji Hospital, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, China

Xing Lv , Wei Dong , Zunyi Zhang , Jian Li , Wenqiang Wang , Linfeng Dong , Zuoquan Yang , Yanqing Zhou , Shuhua Zhao , Shifu Chen , Erlei Zhang

Organizations

Hepatic Surgery Center, Tongji Hospital, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, China, HaploX Biotechnology, Shenzhen, China

Research Funding

No funding received
None.

Background: Immunotherapy is one of the most promising therapeutics for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), and the immune infiltration status in tumors could be used as a biomarker for immunotherapy. However, evaluation of immune infiltration is usually based on RNA-Seq (transcriptome sequencing), which is limited in clinical practice due to the difficulty of handling RNA. On the other hand, WES (whole exome sequencing) is frequently performed to detect tumor mutations in cancer clinic. Therefore, we try to compare T cell infiltration in hepatocellular carcinoma obtained from WES data and RNA-Seq data, evaluate the potential of T cell infiltration from WES data as a biomarker for immunotherapy. Besides, we also evaluated the association of T cell fraction obtained from WES data and other clinical information. Methods: Seventy pairs of HCC tumor and matched normal tissue samples underwent both WES and RNA-Seq. T cell ExTRECT score and mcpCounter score were used to represent the immune infiltration status, and they were generated from WES data and RNA-Seq data respectively. Tumor mutational burden (TMB) score and some characteristics (tumor size, blood pressure, etc.) were also calculated for correlation analysis. Results: T cell ExTRECT score was positively correlated with mcpCounter score (Spearman correlation coefficient: 0.54). While TMB score showed no correlation with T cell ExTRECT score (Spearman correlation coefficient: -0.06) and mcpCounter score (Spearman correlation coefficient: -0.09). Besides, T cell ExTRECT score was negatively associated with main tumor size (Spearman correlation coefficient: -0.38) and High Blood Pressure (Spearman correlation coefficient: -0.37). Conclusions: These results suggest that T cell ExTRECT score obtained from WES and mcpCounter score generated by RNA-seq data is highly correlated, and neither of them is associated with TMB score. T cell ExTRECT score could be used to evaluate immune infiltration in hepatocellular carcinoma, and may serve as a biomarker for immunotherapy regardless of TMB score. Further investigation is still needed to evaluate the clinical outcome of immunotherapy for hepatocellular carcinoma with T cell ExTRECT score.

Disclaimer

This material on this page is ©2024 American Society of Clinical Oncology, all rights reserved. Licensing available upon request. For more information, please contact licensing@asco.org

Abstract Details

Meeting

2023 ASCO Annual Meeting

Session Type

Publication Only

Session Title

Publication Only: Gastrointestinal Cancer—Gastroesophageal, Pancreatic, and Hepatobiliary

Track

Gastrointestinal Cancer—Gastroesophageal, Pancreatic, and Hepatobiliary

Sub Track

Hepatobiliary Cancer - Local-Regional Disease

Citation

J Clin Oncol 41, 2023 (suppl 16; abstr e16226)

DOI

10.1200/JCO.2023.41.16_suppl.e16226

Abstract #

e16226

Abstract Disclosures

Similar Abstracts

First Author: Sumit Gaur

First Author: Chi Lin

First Author: Bhavika Patel