Gene expression patterns that predict sensitivity to epidermal growth factor receptor tyrosine kinase inhibitors in lung cancer cell lines and human lung tumors

Authors

Justin M. Balko, University of KentuckyFollow
Anil Potti, Duke University
Christopher Saunders, University of KentuckyFollow
Arnold J. Stromberg, University of KentuckyFollow
Eric B. Haura, The H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center & Research Institute
Esther P. Black, University of KentuckyFollow

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Increased focus surrounds identifying patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) who will benefit from treatment with epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKI). EGFR mutation, gene copy number, coexpression of ErbB proteins and ligands, and epithelial to mesenchymal transition markers all correlate with EGFR TKI sensitivity, and while prediction of sensitivity using any one of the markers does identify responders, individual markers do not encompass all potential responders due to high levels of inter-patient and inter-tumor variability. We hypothesized that a multivariate predictor of EGFR TKI sensitivity based on gene expression data would offer a clinically useful method of accounting for the increased variability inherent in predicting response to EGFR TKI and for elucidation of mechanisms of aberrant EGFR signalling. Furthermore, we anticipated that this methodology would result in improved predictions compared to single parameters alone both in vitro and in vivo.

RESULTS: Gene expression data derived from cell lines that demonstrate differential sensitivity to EGFR TKI, such as erlotinib, were used to generate models for a priori prediction of response. The gene expression signature of EGFR TKI sensitivity displays significant biological relevance in lung cancer biology in that pertinent signalling molecules and downstream effector molecules are present in the signature. Diagonal linear discriminant analysis using this gene signature was highly effective in classifying out-of-sample cancer cell lines by sensitivity to EGFR inhibition, and was more accurate than classifying by mutational status alone. Using the same predictor, we classified human lung adenocarcinomas and captured the majority of tumors with high levels of EGFR activation as well as those harbouring activating mutations in the kinase domain. We have demonstrated that predictive models of EGFR TKI sensitivity can classify both out-of-sample cell lines and lung adenocarcinomas.

CONCLUSION: These data suggest that multivariate predictors of response to EGFR TKI have potential for clinical use and likely provide a robust and accurate predictor of EGFR TKI sensitivity that is not achieved with single biomarkers or clinical characteristics in non-small cell lung cancers.

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

11-10-2006

Notes/Citation Information

Published in BMC Genomics, v. 7, 289.

© 2006 Balko et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2164-7-289

Repository Citation

Balko, Justin M.; Potti, Anil; Saunders, Christopher; Stromberg, Arnold J.; Haura, Eric B.; and Black, Esther P., "Gene expression patterns that predict sensitivity to epidermal growth factor receptor tyrosine kinase inhibitors in lung cancer cell lines and human lung tumors" (2006). Statistics Faculty Publications. 8.
https://uknowledge.uky.edu/statistics_facpub/8