Purpose: The phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3K) pathway can be activated by alterations affecting several pathway components. For rational application of targeted therapies, detailed understanding of tumor biology and approaches to predict efficacy in individual tumors are required. Our aim was to assess the frequency and distribution of pathway alterations in bladder cancer. Experimental Design: We examined the pathway components (PIK3CA, PTEN, TSC1, RHEB, and LKB1) and putative upstream regulators (FGFR3 and RAS genes) for mutation, allelic loss, copy number alteration, and expression in bladder tumors and cell lines. Results: No mutations were found in RHEB and only a single mutation in LKB1. PIK3CA mutations were detected in 25% of tumors and 26% of cell lines with a significant excess of helical domain mutations (E542K and E545K). There was over-representation but not amplification of the gene. Loss of heterozygosity of the PTEN region and homozygous deletion were found in 12% and 1.4% of tumors, and reduced expression in 49%. Forty-six percent of cell lines showed alterations that implicated PTEN. Sixteen percent of tumors and 11% of cell lines showed TSC1 mutation, and 9q loss of heterozygosity was common (57%). Pathway alterations were independently distributed, suggesting that the mutation of two pathway members may have additive or synergistic effects through noncanonical functions. Conclusions: PI3K pathway alterations are common in bladder cancer. The lack of redundancy of alterations suggests that single-agent PI3K-targeted therapy may not be successful in these cancers. This study provides a well-characterized series of cell lines for use in preclinical studies of targeted agents. (Clin Cancer Res 2009;15(19):6008-17)
SUMMARY
Bladder cancer incurs a higher lifetime treatment cost than other cancers due to frequent recurrence of non-invasive disease. Improved prognostic biomarkers and localised therapy are needed for this large patient group. We defined two major genomic subtypes of primary stage Ta tumors that showed differential risk of recurrence. The higher risk subtype was characterised by loss of 9q including TSC1, increased KI67 labelling index, upregulated glycolysis, DNA repair, mTORC1 signaling, features of the unfolded protein response and altered cholesterol homeostasis. Comparison with muscle-invasive bladder cancer mutation profiles revealed lower overall mutation rates and more frequent mutations in RHOB and chromatin modifier genes. More mutations in the histone-lysine demethylase KDM6A were present in non-invasive tumors from females than males.
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