Project description:Adoptive immunotherapy using ex vivo expanded tumor reactive lymphocytes can mediate durable cancer regression in selected melanoma patients. Analyses of these trials have associated the in vivo engraftment ability of the transferred cells with their anti-tumor efficacy. Thus, there is significant clinical interest in the prospective isolation of tumor specific T cells that can reliably persist after transfer. Animal studies have suggested that central memory CD8+ T cells (TCM) have divergent capabilities including effector differentiation to target antigen and stem cell-like self renewal that enable long term survival after adoptive transfer. In this study, we sought to isolate human melanoma specific TCM to define their in vivo fate and function after autologous therapeutic transfer to metastatic patients. To facilitate the high throughput identification of these rare cells from patients, we report that TCM have a defined stoichiometric production of IL-2 and IFN-g mRNA after antigen stimulation. Melanoma specific T cells screened for high relative IL-2 production possessed a TCM phenotype and superior in vitro proliferative capacity compared to cells with low IL-2 production. To investigate in vivo effector function and self renewal capability, melanoma specific TCM underwent in vitro expansion and differentiation into lytic effector clones and then were adoptively transferred back into their hosts. These clones targeted skin melanocytes in all five patients and persisted long term and reacquired parental TCM attributes in four patients after transfer. These findings demonstrate the favorable engraftment fitness for human TCM-derived clones, but further efforts to improve their anti-tumor efficacy are still necessary. We used microarrays to compare the resting gene expression profile of melanoma specific CD8+ T cell clones that were derived from either High IL-2:IFN index precursors or Low IL-2:IFN index precursors. Three melanoma specific effector clones were derived from parental cells that possessed a high IL-2:IFN index from three independent patients with metastatic melanoma. Two melanoma specific effector clones were derived from parental cells that possessed a low IL-2:IFN index from two independent patients with metastatic melanoma. We used microarrays to compare the resting gene expression profile of the CD8+ T cell clones that were derived from either high IL-2:IFN index precursors or low IL-2:IFN index precursors.

Project description:Analysis of DNA from fixed tissues specimens of 58 primary uveal melanomas, with known clinical outcome, to determine gene copy number variations that were associated with survival. Abstract: Uveal melanomas can be stratified into subgroups with high or low risk of metastatic death, according to the presence of gross chromosomal abnormalities. Where a monosomy 3 uveal melanoma is detected, patient survival at three years is reduced to 50%. However, approximately 5% of patients with a disomy 3 tumour ultimately develop metastasis, and a further 5% of monosomy 3 uveal melanoma patients’ exhibit disease-free survival for more than five years. Despite extensive knowledge of the chromosomal abnormalities occurring in uveal melanoma, the genes driving metastasis are not well defined. Gene copy number variations occurring in a well-characterised cohort of 58 formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded uveal melanoma samples were identified using the Affymetrix SNP 6.0 whole genome microarray. Four genetic sub-groups of primary uveal melanoma were represented in the patient cohort: 1) disomy 3 with long-term survival; 2) metastasizing disomy 3; 3) metastasizing monosomy 3; and 4) monosomy 3 with long-term survival. Cox regression and Kaplan-Meier survival analysis identified three genes that were associated with differences in patient survival. Patients with an amplification of CNKSR3 (6q) or RIPK1 (6p) demonstrated longer survival than those with gene deletions or no copy number change (log rank, p=0.022 and p<0.001, respectively). Conversely, those patients with an amplification of PENK (8q) showed reduced survival (log rank p<0.001). CNKSR3, RIPK1 and PENK are novel candidate metastasis regulatory genes in uveal melanoma. This is the first report of amplification of a specific gene on 6p that is associated with improved uveal melanoma patient survival and suggests that the development of uveal melanomas with a propensity to metastasise may be limited by genes on 6p. 58 samples in total. Ten disomy 3 with long-term survival. Fifteen disomy 3 with metastasising. Seventeen monosomy 3 with long-term survival. Sixteen monosomy 3 metastasising.

Project description:An evaluation of multifocal lesions from patients with in-transit extremity melanoma to determine if all lesions from a patient harbor homogeneous patterns of gene expression; Gene expression profiling studies can help guide treatment for cancer patients by providing tools in the form of gene-expression signatures to characterize a tumor in terms of underlying biology, predicted response to therapy, metastatic progression and/or recurrence. The utility of gene signatures for defining therapeutic strategies in the treatment of extremity in-transit melanoma will be dependent on the genetic relationship between the multifocal lesions typically present in this disease and the extent to which a single lesion is representative of residual tumor burden. Using microarray-based gene expression profiling we examined 43 in-transit melanoma lesions across 17 patients with multifocal disease to determine whether one lesion could accurately characterize the underlying biology and genetic profile of a patient's tumor. Principal component analysis, unsupervised hierarchical clustering, one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) and gene signatures predictive of chemosensitivity and oncogenic pathway activation showed gene expression patterns to be highly similar (p-values: <0.006; average r = 0.979) between lesions from a single patient but to be significantly different across patients (p<0.05). These findings demonstrate that individual melanoma tumor nodules in patients with multifocal disease are genetically similar and a single lesion can be used to predict response to chemotherapy, evaluate the activation status of oncogenic signaling pathways and characterize other aspects of the biology of an individual patient's disease. These results will facilitate the utilization of gene expression profiling in clinical trials of targeted therapy in melanoma allowing for more rational identification of candidates for specific therapies. Experiment Overall Design: Gene expression profiles were obtained from 43 lesions across 17 patients and evaluated using several different algorithms to determine the degree of correlation across multifocal lesions and to evaluate patterns of gene expression that are different across patients

Dataset Information

Homo sapiens

Similar Datasets

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure

Tweets