Comprehensive analyses unveil novel genomic and immunological characteristics of micropapillary pattern in lung adenocarcinoma

Protein Tyrosine Phosphatase PRL-3: A Key Player in Cancer Signaling

Protein phosphatases are primarily responsible for dephosphorylation modification within signal transduction pathways. Phosphatase of regenerating liver-3 (PRL-3) is a dual-specific phosphatase implicated in cancer pathogenesis. Understanding PRL-3's intricate functions and developing targeted therapies is crucial for advancing cancer treatment. This review highlights its regulatory mechanisms, expression patterns, and multifaceted roles in cancer progression. PRL-3's involvement in proliferation, migration, invasion, metastasis, angiogenesis, and drug resistance is discussed. Regulatory mechanisms encompass transcriptional control, alternative splicing, and post-translational modifications. PRL-3 exhibits selective expressions in specific cancer types, making it a potential target for therapy. Despite advances in small molecule inhibitors, further research is needed for clinical application. PRL-3-zumab, a humanized antibody, shows promise in preclinical studies and clinical trials. Our review summarizes the current understanding of the cancer-related cellular function of PRL-3, its prognostic value, and the research progress of therapeutic inhibitors.

Survival benefit of adjuvant chemotherapy after resection of Stage I lung adenocarcinoma containing micropapillary components

BACKGROUND

The usefulness of postoperative adjuvant chemotherapy (ACT) for patients with stage I lung adenocarcinoma with micropapillary (MIP) components remains unclear. We analyzed whether postoperative ACT could reduce recurrence in patients with stage I lung adenocarcinoma with MIP components, thereby improving their overall survival (OS) and disease-free survival (DFS).

METHODS

Data for patients with pathologically confirmed stage I lung adenocarcinoma with MIP components from January 2012 to December 2018 were retrospectively analyzed. OS and DFS were analyzed in groups and subgroups.

RESULTS

Overall, 259 patients were enrolled. Patients who received ACT in stage IA showed significantly better survival than did those with no-adjuvant chemotherapy (NACT); (5-year OS 89.4% vs. 73.6%, p < 0.001; 5-year DFS 87.2% vs. 66.0%, p = 0.008). A difference was also observed for in-stage IB patients (5-year OS 82.0% vs. 51.8%, p = 0.001; 5-year DFS 76.0% vs. 41.11 %, p = 0.004). In subgroup analysis based on the proportion of MIP components, patients with 1%-5% MIP components had a significantly better prognosis in the ACT group than in the NACT group (5-year OS 82.4% vs. 66.0%, p = 0.005; 5-year DFS 76.5% vs. 49.1%, p = 0.032). A similar difference was observed for patients with MIP ≥5% (5-year OS 80.7% vs. 47.8%, p = 0.009; 5-year DFS 73.11% vs. 43.5%, p = 0.007).

CONCLUSION

Among patients with stage I lung adenocarcinoma with MIP components, those who received ACT showed significant survival benefits compared to those without ACT. Patients with lung adenocarcinoma with MIP components could benefit from ACT when the MIP was ≥1%.

[Mutational Signatures Analysis of Micropapillary Components and Exploration of ZNF469 Gene in Early-stage Lung Adenocarcinoma with Ground-glass Opacities]

BACKGROUND

In China, lung cancer remains the cancer with the highest incidence and mortality rate. Among early-stage lung adenocarcinomas (LUAD), the micropapillary (MPP) component is prevalent and typically exhibits high aggressiveness, significantly correlating with early metastasis, lymphatic infiltration, and reduced five-year survival rates. Therefore, the study is to explore the similarities and differences between MPP and non-micropapillary (non-MPP) components in malignant pulmonary nodules characterized by GGOs in early-stage LUAD, identify unique mutational features of the MPP component and analyze the relationship between the ZNF469 gene, a member of the zinc-finger protein family, and the prognosis of early-stage LUAD, as well as its correlation with immune infiltration.

METHODS

A total of 31 malignant pulmonary nodules of LUAD were collected and dissected into paired MPP and non-MPP components using microdissection. Whole-exome sequencing (WES) was performed on the components of early-stage malignant pulmonary nodules. Mutational signatures analysis was conducted using R packages such as maftools, Nonnegative Matrix Factorization (NMF), and Sigminer to unveil the genomic mutational characteristics unique to MPP components in invasive LUAD compared to other tumor tissues. Furthermore, we explored the expression of the ZNF469 gene in LUAD using The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database to investigate its potential association with the prognosis. We also investigated gene interaction networks and signaling pathways related to ZNF469 in LUAD using the GeneMANIA database and conducted Gene Ontology (GO) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) enrichment analysis. Lastly, we analyzed the correlation between ZNF469 gene expression and levels of immune cell infiltration in LUAD using the TIMER and TISIDB databases.

RESULTS

MPP components exhibited a higher number of genomic variations, particularly the 13th COSMIC (Catalogue of Somatic Mutations in Cancer) mutational signature characterized by the activity of the cytidine deaminase APOBEC family, which was unique to MPP components compared to non-MPP components in tumor tissues. This suggests the potential involvement of APOBEC in the progression of MPP components in early-stage LUAD. Additionally, MPP samples with high similarity to APOBEC signature displayed a higher tumor mutational burden (TMB), indicating that these patients may be more likely to benefit from immunotherapy. The expression of ZNF469 was significantly upregulated in LUAD compared to normal tissue, and was associated with poor prognosis in LUAD patients (P<0.05). Gene interaction network analysis and GO/KEGG enrichment analysis revealed that COL6A1, COL1A1, COL1A2, TGFB2, MMP2, COL8A2 and C2CD4C interacted with ZNF469 and were mainly involved in encoding collagen proteins and participating in the constitution of extracellular matrix. ZNF469 expression was positively correlated with immune cell infiltration in LUAD (P<0.05).

CONCLUSIONS

The study has unveiled distinctive mutational signatures in the MPP components of early-stage invasive LUAD in the Asian population. Furthermore, we have identified that the elevated expression of mutated ZNF469 impacts the prognosis and immune infiltration in LUAD, suggesting its potential as a diagnostic and prognostic biomarker in LUAD.

A clinical spectrum of resectable lung adenocarcinoma with micropapillary component (MPC) concurrently presenting as mixed ground-glass opacity nodules

BACKGROUND

In clinical practice, preoperative identification of mixed ground-glass opacity (mGGO) nodules with micropapillary component (MPC) to facilitate the implementation of individualized therapeutic strategies and avoid unnecessary surgery is increasingly importantOBJECTIVE: This study aimed to build a predictive model based on clinical and radiological variables for the early identification of MPC in lung adenocarcinoma presenting as mGGO nodules.

METHODS

The enrolled 741 lung adenocarcinoma patients were randomly divided into a training cohort and a validation cohort (3:1 ratio). The pathological specimens and preoperative images of malignant mGGO nodules from the study subjects were retrospectively reviewed. Furthermore, in the training cohort, selected clinical and radiological variables were utilized to construct a predictive model for MPC prediction.

RESULTS

The MPC was found in 228 (43.3%) patients in the training cohort and 72 (41.1%) patients in the validation cohort. Based on the predictive nomogram, the air bronchogram was defined as the most dominant independent risk factor for MPC of mGGO nodules, followed by the maximum computed tomography (CT) value (> 200), adjacent to pleura, gender (male), and vacuolar sign. The nomogram demonstrated good discriminative ability with a C-index of 0.783 (95%[CI] 0.744-0.822) in the training cohort and a C-index of 0.799 (95%[CI] 0.732-0.866) in the validation cohort Additionally, by using the bootstrapping method, this predictive model calculated a corrected AUC of 0.774 (95% CI: 0.770-0.779) in the training cohort.

CONCLUSIONS

This study proposed a predictive model for preoperative identification of MPC in known lung adenocarcinomas presenting as mGGO nodules to facilitate individualized therapy. This nomogram model needs to be further externally validated by subsequent multicenter studies.