Comprehensive analysis of molecular characteristics, TMB, and MSI in Chinese patients with neuroendocrine neoplasms.

Abstract

e16236 Background: Neuroendocrine neoplasms (NENs) is a heterogeneous and rare tumor type. To date, most genomic profiling studies on NENs have mainly focused on pancreatic NENs (PanNENs), less is known about nonpancreatic NENs (NP-NENs). We explored the molecular characteristics, tumor mutational burdens (TMB) and microsatellite instability (MSI) in Chinese NENs patients based on different primary lesions to discover genomic profiles. Methods: We retrospectively analyzed molecular characteristics, TMB and MSI in 155 Chinese NENs patients from laboratory of Simcere Diagnosis (Nanjing, China) during 2019 to 2022. Tissue and plasma samples were profiled using the 551-gene panel next-generation sequencing (NGS). Results: The median age of 155 patients was 61 years old (range, 22-85 years old), the male to female ratio was 1.63:1. 118 cases with known primary lesions could be divided into PanNENs(n=22) and NP-NENs (n=96). There were no differences in age and ratio of PanNENs and NP-NENs. The most common SNV and indel mutations were TP53(23%), DAXX (22.7%), MEN1 (18.2%), KRAS (18.2%), ATM (13.6%), SMAD4 (13.6%) and TSC2 (13.6%) in PanNENs, in which CDK4/6 amplifications were often detected (31.8%, 27.3%). Gene fusions rarely occurred in this cohort. For NP-NENs, we identified TP53 (58.3%), MUC16 (29.2%), RB1(31.3%), LRP1B (22.9%), SMARCA4 (10.4%), SPTA1 (10.4%) and FAT3 (10.4%) as the most common SNV and indel mutations, with MYC (26%) and CDK4 (15.6%) amplifications. CCNE1 high-level amplification was especially common in digestive system NENs. Multiple gene fusions were found in NP-NENs. 13/155 (8.4%) patients carried pathogenic/likely pathogenic germline mutations in MUTYH(n=3), MSH3 (n=2), FANCG (n=2), RAD51D (n=1), CDH1 (n=1), ERCC3 (n=1), ATM (n=1), MEN1 (n=1), RECQL4 (n=1), most of them were associated with DNA damage repair (DDR) pathway. 92.3% (12/13) patients were NP-NENs with only one PanNENs harboring MUTYH germline mutation. 155 NEN patients could be evaluated for TMB, 24 (15.5%) patients had TMB≥10Muts/Mb, 7% (10/24) were lung-derived NENs. TMB was significantly higher in NP-NENs compared to PanNENs (4.26 muts/Mb vs. 2.13muts/Mb, P<0.01). 138 patients could be evaluated for MSI status, only one NEN whose primary site was liver was MSI-H, the others were all MSS. Conclusions: Our data showed that PanNENs and NP-NENs had different mechanisms of tumorigenesis: DAXX and MEN1 alterations commonly identified in PanNENs primarily mediate DDR and PI3K-mTOR pathway. Frequent TP53, RB1 and CCNE1 aberrations in NP-NENs were associated with CDK signaling pathway. TMB was low in almost all NENs exclude lung-derived NENs. It revealed distinct drivers in different subtypes, potentially being used as relevant therapeutic targets.