Exploring biological characteristics of lung cancer in each patient gives clues on differences in the way the patient’s immune system fights against the tumour

We studied a cohort of 62 lung cancer patients to understand their tumor microenvironment. By analyzing their cell type composition and gene expression patterns using novel computational approaches, we found two early stage patient groups showing a difference in the activation of NK cells linked to survival outcomes. Results were validated using a large group of 399 lung patients, where we confirmed these NK cell types as strong indicators of survival in early-stage samples.

The understanding of inter-cellular dialogues in the tumour microenvironment might lead to new therapeutic strategies to beat resistance to current therapies. Capturing these dialogues starting from affordable experiments such as bulk RNAseq is promising for clinical applications.

In the tumor microenvironment (TME), the presence of various immune suppressive signals exacerbates immune cell dysfunction leading to tumor progression and metastasis. The ability to resolve immune cell dysfunction versus activation states could significantly improve prognostic models and prediction of immunotherapy response. Our approach is a very first step towards delineating the type of inter-cellular interactions that could be established in the TME in connection to the presence of these two NK cell subtypes.

Collaborations et partnerships

This work was part of an alliance between the CRCT, Pierre Fabre and the IUCT-Oncopole with the collaboration of MassLab at Vanderbilt university and the participation of the Chair of bioinformatics in oncology of the CRCT sponsored by INSERM, Pierre Fabre and the Fondation Toulouse Cancer Santé.