Landscape of driver gene events, biomarkers, and druggable targets identified by whole-genome sequencing of glioblastomas

Wesley S van de Geer, Youri Hoogstrate, Kaspar Draaisma, Pierre A Robe, Sander Bins, Ron H J Mathijssen, Pim French, Harmen J G van de Werken, Filip Y F de Vos

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

10 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Background: The survival of glioblastoma patients is poor. Median survival after diagnosis is 15 months, despite treatment involving surgical resection, radiotherapy, and/or temozolomide chemotherapy. Identification of novel targets and stratification strategies of glioblastoma patients to improve patient survival is urgently needed. Whole-genome sequencing (WGS) is the most comprehensive means to identify such DNA-level targets. We report a unique set of WGS samples along with comprehensive analyses of the glioblastoma genome and potential clinical impact of WGS.

Methods: Our cohort consisted of 42 glioblastoma tumor tissue and matched whole-blood samples, which were whole-genome sequenced as part of the CPCT-02 study. Somatic single-nucleotide variants, small insertions/deletions, multi-nucleotide variants, copy-number alterations (CNAs), and structural variants were analyzed. These aberrations were harnessed to investigate driver genes, enrichments in CNAs, mutational signatures, fusion genes, and potential targeted therapies.

Results: Tumor mutational burden (TMB) was similar to other WGS efforts (1-342 mutations per megabase pair). Mutational analysis in low TMB samples showed that the age-related CpG demethylation signature was dominant, while hyper- and ultramutated tumors had additional defective DNA mismatch repair signatures and showed microsatellite instability in their genomes. We detected chromothripsis in 24% of our cohort, recurrently on chromosomes 1 and 12. Recurrent noncoding regions only resulted in TERT promoter variants. Finally, we found biomarkers and potentially druggable changes in all but one of our tumor samples.

Conclusions: With high-quality WGS data and comprehensive methods, we identified the landscape of driver gene events and druggable targets in glioblastoma patients.

Original languageEnglish
Article numbervdab177
Pages (from-to)1-11
JournalNeuro-oncology advances
Volume4
Issue number1
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 21 Jan 2022

Keywords

  • genomics
  • glioblastoma
  • precision medicine
  • whole-genome sequencing

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Landscape of driver gene events, biomarkers, and druggable targets identified by whole-genome sequencing of glioblastomas'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this