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Li J, Chen R, Chen Y, Xia Q, Zhou X, Xia Q, Wang C, Wan L, Bao H, Huang G, Liu J. Relationship between the expression of PD-L1 and 18F-FDG uptake in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma. Br J Cancer 2023; 129:541-550. [PMID: 37311977 PMCID: PMC10403514 DOI: 10.1038/s41416-023-02297-9] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/22/2022] [Revised: 01/19/2023] [Accepted: 04/24/2023] [Indexed: 06/15/2023] Open
Abstract
BACKGROUND PD-L1 promotes glycolysis in tumour cells. We observed a correlation between high PD-L1 expression and high 18F-FDG uptake in patients with pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) in a previous study. This study aims to determine the usefulness of 18F-FDG PET/CT for evaluating the PD-L1 status in PDAC and to elucidate its rationality by integrated analyses. METHODS For bioinformatics analysis, WGCNA, GSEA and TIMER were applied to analyse the pathways and hub genes associated with PD-L1 and glucose uptake. 18F-FDG uptake assay was used to determine the glucose uptake rate of PDAC cells in vitro. Related genes expression were verified by RT-PCR and western blot. A retrospective analysis was performed on 47 patients with PDAC who had undergone 18F-FDG PET/CT. Maximum standardised uptake values (SUVmax) were determined. The usefulness of SUVmax for evaluating PD-L1 status was determined by receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis. RESULTS Bioinformatics analysis showed that several signalling pathways are associated with both PD-L1 expression and tumour glucose uptake, among which JAK-STAT may be an important one. By in vitro experiments, the regulatory role of PD-L1 on glucose uptake was demonstrated, and its dependency on the JAK-STAT pathway was also verified by the rescue study. The SUVmax of PD-L1-positive patients was significantly higher than PD-L1-negative in tumour cells (TCs) (6.1 ± 2.3 vs. 11.1 ± 4.2; P < 0.001), and in tumour-infiltrating immune cells (TIICs) (6.4 ± 3.2 vs. 8.4 ± 3.5; P < 0.001). In a multivariate analysis, SUVmax was significantly associated with PD-L1 expression in TCs and TIICs (P < 0.001 and P = 0.018, respectively). Using SUVmax cut-off values of 8.15 and 7.75, PD-L1 status in TCs and TIICs could be predicted with accuracies of 91.5% and 74.5%, respectively. CONCLUSION Higher 18F-FDG uptake by PDAC is associated with elevated PD-L1 expression. JAK-STAT is an important pathway that mediates PD-L1 to promote glucose uptake in PDAC.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jiajin Li
- Department of Nuclear Medicine, Ren Ji Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, 200127, Shanghai, China
- Institute of Clinical Nuclear Medicine, Ren Ji Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, 200127, Shanghai, China
| | - Ruohua Chen
- Department of Nuclear Medicine, Ren Ji Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, 200127, Shanghai, China
- Institute of Clinical Nuclear Medicine, Ren Ji Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, 200127, Shanghai, China
| | - Yumei Chen
- Department of Nuclear Medicine, Ren Ji Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, 200127, Shanghai, China
- Institute of Clinical Nuclear Medicine, Ren Ji Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, 200127, Shanghai, China
| | - Qing Xia
- Department of Oncology, Ren Ji Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, 200127, Shanghai, China
| | - Xiang Zhou
- Department of Nuclear Medicine, Ren Ji Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, 200127, Shanghai, China
- Institute of Clinical Nuclear Medicine, Ren Ji Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, 200127, Shanghai, China
| | - Qian Xia
- Department of Nuclear Medicine, Ren Ji Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, 200127, Shanghai, China
- Institute of Molecular Medicine, Ren Ji Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, 200127, Shanghai, China
| | - Cheng Wang
- Department of Nuclear Medicine, Ren Ji Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, 200127, Shanghai, China
- Institute of Clinical Nuclear Medicine, Ren Ji Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, 200127, Shanghai, China
| | - Liangrong Wan
- Department of Nuclear Medicine, Ren Ji Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, 200127, Shanghai, China
- Institute of Clinical Nuclear Medicine, Ren Ji Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, 200127, Shanghai, China
| | - Haiqin Bao
- Department of Nuclear Medicine, Ren Ji Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, 200127, Shanghai, China
- Institute of Clinical Nuclear Medicine, Ren Ji Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, 200127, Shanghai, China
| | - Gang Huang
- Department of Nuclear Medicine, Ren Ji Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, 200127, Shanghai, China.
- Institute of Clinical Nuclear Medicine, Ren Ji Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, 200127, Shanghai, China.
- Shanghai Key Laboratory of Molecular Imaging, Shanghai University of Medicine and Health Sciences, 201318, Shanghai, China.
| | - Jianjun Liu
- Department of Nuclear Medicine, Ren Ji Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, 200127, Shanghai, China.
- Institute of Clinical Nuclear Medicine, Ren Ji Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, 200127, Shanghai, China.
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