Kawanishi, Natsuko

Background The C-C motif chemokine receptor 5 (CCR5)/C-C motif chemokine ligand 5 (CCL5) axis plays a major role in colorectal cancer (CRC). We aimed to characterize the molecular features associated with CCR5 / CCL5 expression in CRC and to determine whether CCR5 / CCL5 levels could impact treatment outcomes. Methods 7604 CRCs tested with NextGen Sequencing on DNA and RNA were analyzed. Molecular features were evaluated according to CCR5 and CCL5 tumor gene expression quartiles. The impact on treatment outcomes was assessed in two cohorts, including 6341 real-world patients and 429 patients from the Cancer and Leukemia Group B (CALGB)/SWOG 80405 trial. Results CCR5 / CCL5 expression was higher in right-sided versus left-sided tumors, and positively associated with consensus molecular subtypes 1 and 4. Higher CCR5 / CCL5 expression was associated with higher tumor mutational burden, deficiency in mismatch repair and programmed cell death ligand 1 (PD-L1) levels. Additionally, high CCR5 / CCL5 were associated with higher immune cell infiltration in the tumor microenvironment (TME) of MMR proficient tumors. Ingenuity pathway analysis revealed upregulation of the programmed cell death protein 1 (PD-1)/PD-L1 cancer immunotherapy pathway, phosphatase and tensin homolog (PTEN) and peroxisome proliferator-activated receptors (PPAR) signaling, and cytotoxic T-lymphocyte antigen 4 (CTLA-4) signaling in cytotoxic T lymphocytes, whereas several inflammation-related pathways were downregulated. Low CCR5 / CCL5 expression was associated with increased benefit from cetuximab-FOLFOX treatment in the CALGB/SWOG 80405 trial, where significant treatment interaction was observed with biologic agents and chemotherapy backbone. Conclusions Our data show a strong association between CCR5/CCL5 gene expression and distinct molecular features, gene expression profiles, TME cell infiltration, and treatment benefit in CRC. Targeting the CCR5/CCL5 axis may have clinical applications in selected CRC subgroups and may play a key role in developing and deploying strategies to modulate the immune TME for CRC treatment.

3586 Background: HSP90 mediated chaperoning is a well-conserved biological mechanism for stabilization and activation of kinases. More than 60% of human kinases including VEGFR, CRAF, CSF1R, and FGFR are target of HSP90 (client kinases), whereas EGFR is non-client. CDC37 is a specific co-chaperone determining selectivity of client kinases recognized by HSP90. We hypothesized that gene expression levels of CDC37 have predictive values for anti-angiogenic therapies in mCRC. Methods: The subjects of this study were mCRC patients treated with regorafenib (REGO, Japanese retrospective cohort) and those treated with bevacizumab (BEV) or cetuximab (CET) in combination with first-line chemotherapy (CALGB/SWOG 80405 trial cohort). CDC37 expression levels were measured using RNA isolated from FFPE samples by nCounter gene expression profiling (Nanostring) and HiSeq 2500 (Illumina) in the Japanese and CALGB/SWOG 80405 cohorts, respectively. Overall survival (OS) and progression-free survival (PFS) were compared between patients with high CDC37 expression ( CDC37-H) and those with low expression ( CDC37-L), grouped by median cutoff value in each cohort. Results: In total, 484 patients were included (50 treated with REGO, 227 treated with BEV, and 207 treated with CET). In REGO-treated patients, CDC37-H showed significantly better OS (median 11.3 vs 6.0 months, adjusted hazard ratio [HR] 0.24, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.11-0.54, p <0.01) and PFS (median 3.5 vs 1.9 months, adjusted HR 0.51, 95% CI 0.28-0.94, p = 0.03) compared to CDC37-L. Similarly, in BEV-treated patients, CDC37-H showed significantly better PFS (median 13.5 vs 9.6 months, adjusted HR 0.59, 95% CI 0.43-0.79, p <0.01) and numerically better OS (median 34.1 vs 29.4 months, adjusted HR 0.81, 95% CI 0.60-1.11, p = 0.20) compared to CDC37-L. However, in CET-treated patients, CDC37-H and CDC37-L patients showed similar OS (median 33.7 vs 26.1 months, adjusted HR 1.00, 95% CI 0.73-1.38, p = 0.98) and PFS (median 11.3 vs 11.0 months, adjusted HR 1.08, 95% CI 0.81-1.45, p = 0.60). Significant interaction was observed between CDC37 expression and treatment in terms of PFS in the CALGB/SWOG 80405 cohort ( p = 0.01). Conclusions: Our results suggest patients with CDC37-dependent ( CDC37-H) tumors may derive more benefit from REGO and BEV both of which target HSP90 client kinases or signaling pathways, but not from CET which target HSP90 non-client kinase. Further validation studies are warranted to develop a novel personalized approach for targeted therapies based on CDC37 expression in mCRC patients. Support: U10CA180821, U10CA180888; Pfizer, Genentech; https://acknowledgments.alliancefound.org. ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT00265850.