Genomic profiling and immune landscape of olfactory neuroblastoma in China

Yunyun Yang; Zhiyi Wan; Enli Zhang; Yingshi Piao

doi:10.3389/fonc.2023.1226494

Genomic profiling and immune landscape of olfactory neuroblastoma in China

Front Oncol. 2023 Nov 1:13:1226494. doi: 10.3389/fonc.2023.1226494. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Yunyun Yang^{1

2}, Zhiyi Wan³, Enli Zhang³, Yingshi Piao^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Pathology, Beijing Tongren Hospital Affiliated to Capital Medical University, Beijing, China.
² Department of Medicine, Beijing Key Laboratory of Head and Neck Molecular Diagnostic Pathology, Beijing, China.
³ Department of Medicine, Genecast Biotechnology Co., Ltd., Wuxi, China.

Abstract

Background: Olfactory neuroblastoma (ONB) is a rare malignant neoplasm of the olfactory mucosa. The paucity of genomic data has prevented the development of individualized ONB treatments. Here, we investigated the genomic and immune landscape of ONB in Chinese patients.

Methods: Whole exome sequencing (WES) and multiplex immunofluorescence (MIF) analysis were performed on tissue samples from 19 Chinese ONB patients. Patients were divided into low- and high-grade groups.

Results: Overall, 929 nonsynonymous alterations were identified in 18 (94.74%) ONB cases. The most prevalent altered cancer-related genes were CTNNB1 (16%) and ZNRF3 (16%). The most mutated oncogenic pathways were the WNT and RAS pathways. The median tumor mutation burden (TMB) was 0.45, ranging from 0 to 3.25. Only one case expressed PD-L1 (> 1%) in the tumor region. The percentage of CD8+ tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) in the tumor region ranged from 0.03% to 84.9%, with a median of 1.08%. No significant differences were observed between the low- and high-grade groups for clinicopathological features, mutant genes, mutant pathways, TMB, tumor neoantigen burden (TNB), mutant-allele tumor heterogeneity (MATH), PD-L1 expression levels, or CD8+ TIL percentage. However, the low-grade group showed significantly more CD68+ macrophages in both the tumor and total region than the high-grade group. Notably, CD68+CD163- macrophages accounted for an average of 80.5% of CD68+ macrophages.

Conclusion: This study presents data on the genomic and immune landscape of ONB cases in China. CTNNB1 and ZNRF3 were the most prevalent altered cancer-related genes. The results of TMB, PD-L1, and CD8+ Tils suggest that ONB may be insensitive to immunotherapy. M1 macrophages may be positively associated with the prognosis of ONB.

Implications for practice: In this study, the most prevalent altered cancer-related genes were CTNNB1 (16%) and ZNRF3 (16%). The most mutated oncogenic pathways were the WNT and RAS pathways. The median tumor mutation burden (TMB) was 0.45, ranging from 0 to 3.25. Only one (1/15) case expressed PD-L1 (> 1%) in the tumor region. However, the low-grade group showed significantly more CD68+ macrophages in both the tumor and total region than the high-grade group. The higher level of CD68-related macrophages indicates that M1 macrophages potentially play an important role in ONB development that is possibly associated with prognosis.

Keywords: genomic; immune landscape; olfactory neuroblastoma; prognosis; tumor.

Grants and funding

The authors declare financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. This study was supported by the Special Scientific Research for Capital Health Development (Grant No. 2022-2-2054) and Young Reserve Talents of Beijing Tongren Hospital (Grant No. ynkyyyy).