RESUMO
p53 and aldehyde dehydrogenase (ALDH) have been implicated in key tumorigenesis processes including cancer initiating cell (CIC) maintenance; however, the relationship between these two mediators remains poorly defined. In this study, ALDH isoform expression diversity was revealed in CICs with disparate p53 functional states: gain of function, high risk p53 mutation (p53HRmut) and wildtype p53 (p53WT) inactivated by the human papillomavirus 16 (HPV16) E6 oncogene. Interrogation of head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) cell lines and patient tumors showed that HPV16+/p53WT cases have higher ALDH variance score (AVS), a measure of tumor ALDH isoform expression diversity, compared to HPV-/p53HRmut cases (p = 0.03). AVS and several individual ALDH isoforms were associated with prognosis in HPV16+/p53WT HNSCC but not in HPV-/p53HRmut HNSCC. Knockdown of the dominant ALDH isoform in high AVS HNSCC depleted the CIC pool in vitro and in vivo. Our results demonstrate that p53 functional states are associated with distinct ALDH isoform transcriptomic signatures. Moreover, tumor ALDH profiling may provide insight on which ALDH isoform to target in high AVS HNSCC tumors to deplete the CIC population.
Assuntos
Aldeído Desidrogenase/genética , Infecções por Papillomavirus/metabolismo , Proteína Supressora de Tumor p53/metabolismo , Aldeído Desidrogenase/metabolismo , Animais , Feminino , Papillomavirus Humano 16/genética , Papillomavirus Humano 16/fisiologia , Humanos , Isoenzimas/genética , Isoenzimas/metabolismo , Camundongos , Células-Tronco Neoplásicas/metabolismo , Proteínas Oncogênicas Virais/genética , Proteínas Oncogênicas Virais/metabolismo , Infecções por Papillomavirus/enzimologia , Infecções por Papillomavirus/genética , Infecções por Papillomavirus/virologia , Proteínas Repressoras/genética , Proteínas Repressoras/metabolismo , Transcriptoma , Proteína Supressora de Tumor p53/genéticaRESUMO
OBJECTIVE: To determine the influence of high-risk HPV genotype on outcomes in HNSCC patients. MATERIALS AND METHODS: This is a retrospective analysis of The Cancer Genome Atlas HNSCC cohort. RESULTS: Using multivariate Cox regression analysis, we revealed that HPV33+ HNSCC patients have inferior overall survival compared to HPV16+ HNSCC patients independent of anatomical site (HR 3.59, 95% CI 1.58-8.12; p = 0.002). A host anti-viral immune response, apolipoprotein B mRNA editing enzyme, and catalytic polypeptide-like mutational signature, was under represented and, aneuploidy and 3p loss were more frequent in HPV33+ tumors. A deconvolution RNA-Seq algorithm to infer immune cell fractions revealed that CD8+ cytotoxic T-cell infiltration was reduced in HPV33+ compared to HPV16+ tumors (1.3% vs. 2.7%, p = 0.007). TGFB1, a negative modulator of T-cell infiltration and function, showed expression and pathway enrichment in HPV33+ tumors. CONCLUSIONS: Our work reveals that HPV genotype, in particular HPV33, has a powerful impact on HNSCC patient survival. We argue that p16 immunohistochemistry as a surrogate biomarker for HPV+ status will lead to sub-optimal risk stratification and advocate HPV genotype testing as standard of care.