Surface profiles of live colorectal cancer cells and tumor infiltrating lymphocytes from surgical samples correspond to prognostic categories

CD138 plasma cells may predict brain metastasis recurrence following resection and stereotactic radiosurgery

We sought to identify candidate biomarkers for early brain metastasis (BM) recurrence in patients who underwent craniotomy followed by adjuvant stereotactic radiosurgery. RNA sequencing was performed on eight resected brain metastasis tissue samples and revealed B-cell related genes to be highly expressed in patients who did not experience a distant brain failure and had prolonged overall survival. To translate the findings from RNA sequencing data, we performed immunohistochemistry to stain for B and T cell markers from formalin-fixed parffin-embedded tissue blocks on 13 patients. CD138 expressing plasma cells were identified and quantitatively assessed for each tumor sample. Patients’ tumor tissues that expressed high levels of CD138 plasma cells (N = 4) had a statistically significant improvement in OS compared to low levels of CD138 (N = 9) (p = 0.01). Although these findings are preliminary, the significance of CD138 expressing plasma cells within BM specimens should be investigated in a larger cohort. Immunologic markers based on resection cavity analysis could be predictive for determining patient outcomes following cavity-directed SRS.

Prognostic roles for IL-2-producing and CD69+ T cell subsets in colorectal cancer patients

Tumor infiltrating T cells are a predictor of patient outcome in patients with colorectal cancer (CRC). However, many T cell populations have been associated with both poor and positive patient prognoses, indicating a need to further understand the role of different T cell subsets in CRC. In this study, the T cell infiltrate from the tumor and nontumor bowel (NTB) was examined in 95 CRC patients using flow cytometry and associations with cancer stage and disease recurrence made. Our findings showed that IFN-γ-producing T cells were associated with positive patient outcomes, and CD69⁺ T cells were associated with disease recurrence. Inflammatory (IL-17) and regulatory T cells were not associated with disease recurrence. Surprisingly, in a second cohort of 32 patients with long-term clinical follow up data, tumor infiltrating IL-2-producing T cells correlated negatively with disease free survival (DFS) and a higher frequency of IL-2-producing T cells was found in the NTB of patients with poorly differentiated tumors. These results point toward the possibility of a negative impact of IL-2 in tumor immune responses, which may influence future immunotherapy treatments in CRC patients.

Meta-analysis indicating that high ALCAM expression predicts poor prognosis in colorectal cancer

Activated leukocyte cell adhesion molecule (ALCAM) has been linked to the development and progress of colorectal cancer (CRC). In this meta-analysis, we examined whether ALCAM expression is predictive of survival outcomes in CRC patients. We included 7 studies with 2048 patients in our meta-analysis after searching the PubMed, Cochrane Library, EMBASE, OVID and Web of Science databases. High ALCAM expression was associated with poor overall survival among CRC patients (HR = 1.94, 95%CI = 1.05–3.58, P = 0.03). High ALCAM expression was also associated with aggressive clinicopathological features such as tumor stage (T3,T4/T1,T2; HR = 2.66, 95%CI = 2.01–3.51, P < 0.00001), nodal status (Positive/Negative, HR = 2.12, 95%CI = 1.61–2.82, P < 0.00001), distant metastasis (M1/M0, HR = 3.30, 95%CI = 2,21–4.91, P < 0.00001), tumor grade (grade3/grade1,2, HR = 1,28, 95% CI = 1.00–1.62, P = 0.05), and patient age (> 60/< 60, HR = 1.29, 95%CI = 1.01–1.66, P = 0.05). These findings indicate that high ALCAM expression is associated with poor prognosis and advanced clinicopathological characteristics in CRC patients.

Surface Profiling of Extracellular Vesicles from Plasma or Ascites Fluid Using DotScan Antibody Microarrays

DotScan antibody microarrays were initially developed for the extensive surface profiling of live leukemia and lymphoma cells. DotScan's diagnostic capability was validated with an extensive clinical trial using mononuclear cells from the blood or bone marrow of leukemia or lymphoma patients. DotScan has also been used for the profiling of surface proteins on peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) from patients with HIV, liver disease, and stable and progressive B-cell chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL). Fluorescence multiplexing allowed the simultaneous profiling of cancer cells and leukocytes from disaggregated colorectal and melanoma tumor biopsies after capture on DotScan. In this chapter, we have used DotScan for the surface profiling of extracellular vesicles (EV) recovered from conditioned growth medium of cancer cell lines and the blood of patients with CLL. The detection of captured EV was performed by enhanced chemiluminescence (ECL) using biotinylated antibodies that recognized antigens expressed on the surface of the EV subset of interest. DotScan was also used to profile EV from the blood of healthy individuals and the ascites fluid of ovarian cancer patients. DotScan binding patterns of EV from human plasma and other body fluids may yield diagnostic or prognostic signatures for monitoring the incidence, treatment, and progression of cancers.

Stem and immune cells in colorectal primary tumour: Number and function of subsets may diagnose metastasis

An important percentage of colorectal cancer (CRC) patients will develop metastasis, mainly in the liver, even after a successful curative resection. This leads to a very high mortality rate if metastasis is not detected early on. Disseminated cancer cells develop from metastatic stem cells (MetSCs). Recent knowledge has accumulated about these cells particularly in CRC, so they may now be tracked from the removed primary tumour. This approach could be especially important in prognosis of metastasis because it is becoming clear that metastasis does not particularly rely on testable driver mutations. Among the many traits supporting an epigenetic amplification of cell survival and self-renewal mechanisms of MetSCs, the role of many immune cell populations present in tumour tissues is becoming clear. The amount of tumour-infiltrating lymphocytes (T, B and natural killer cells), dendritic cells and some regulatory populations have already shown prognostic value or to be correlated with disease-free survival time, mainly in immunohistochemistry studies of unique cell populations. Parallel analyses of these immune cell populations together with MetSCs in the primary tumour of patients, with later follow-up data of the patients, will define the usefulness of specific combinations of both immune and MetSCs cell populations. It is expected that these combinations, together to different biomarkers in the form of an immune score, may predict future tumour recurrences, metastases and/or mortality in CRC. It will also support the future design of improved immunotherapeutic approaches against metastasis.