Purpose: Although most patients with microsatellite instable (MSI) metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC) respond to immune checkpoint blockade (ICB), only a small subset of patients with microsatellite stable (MSS) tumors have similar benefit. Biomarkers defining ICB-susceptible subsets of patients with MSS mCRPC are urgently needed.
Methods: Using next-generation T-cell repertoire sequencing, we explored immune signatures in 54 patients with MSS and MSI mCRPC who were treated with or without ICB. We defined subset-specific immune metrics as well as T-cell clusters and correlated the signatures with treatment benefit.
Results: Consistent overlaps between tumor and peripheral T-cell repertoires suggested that blood was an informative material to identify relevant T-cell signatures. We found considerably higher blood T-cell richness and diversity and more shared T-cell clusters with low generation probability (pGen) in MSI versus MSS mCRPC, potentially reflecting more complex T-cell responses because of a greater neoepitope load in the MSI subset. Interestingly, patients with MSS mCRPC with shared low pGen T-cell clusters showed significantly better outcomes with ICB, but not with other treatments, compared with patients without such clusters. Blood clearance of T-cell clusters on ICB treatment initiation seemed to be compatible with T-cell migration to the primary tumor or metastatic sites during the process of clonal replacement as described for other tumors receiving ICB.
Conclusion: The MSI mCRPC subset shows a distinct T-cell signature that can be detected in blood. This signature points to immune parameters that could help identify a subset of patients with MSS mCRPC who may have an increased likelihood of responding to ICB or to combination approaches including ICB.