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Pervasiveness of HLA allele-specific expression loss across tumor types
- Source :
- Genome Medicine, Vol 15, Iss 1, Pp 1-12 (2023)
- Publication Year :
- 2023
- Publisher :
- BMC, 2023.
-
Abstract
- Abstract Background Efficient presentation of mutant peptide fragments by the human leukocyte antigen class I (HLA-I) genes is necessary for immune-mediated killing of cancer cells. According to recent reports, patient HLA-I genotypes can impact the efficacy of cancer immunotherapy, and the somatic loss of HLA-I heterozygosity has been established as a factor in immune evasion. While global deregulated expression of HLA-I has also been reported in different tumor types, the role of HLA-I allele-specific expression loss — that is, the preferential RNA expression loss of specific HLA-I alleles — has not been fully characterized in cancer. Methods Here, we use RNA and whole-exome sequencing data to quantify HLA-I allele-specific expression (ASE) in cancer using our novel method arcasHLA-quant. Results We show that HLA-I ASE loss in at least one of the three HLA-I genes is a pervasive phenomenon across TCGA tumor types. In pancreatic adenocarcinoma, tumor-specific HLA-I ASE loss is associated with decreased overall survival specifically in the basal-like subtype, a finding that we validated in an independent cohort through laser-capture microdissection. Additionally, we show that HLA-I ASE loss is associated with poor immunotherapy outcomes in metastatic melanoma through retrospective analyses. Conclusions Together, our results highlight the prevalence of HLA-I ASE loss and provide initial evidence of its clinical significance in cancer prognosis and immunotherapy treatment.
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 1756994X
- Volume :
- 15
- Issue :
- 1
- Database :
- Directory of Open Access Journals
- Journal :
- Genome Medicine
- Publication Type :
- Academic Journal
- Accession number :
- edsdoj.5f7dd83d1a46d3bcb688e49eacddee
- Document Type :
- article
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/10.1186/s13073-023-01154-x