A comprehensive understanding of the emergence of therapy resistance in cancer requires new approaches capable of generating and characterizing drug resistant cell lines at scale. Here, we present the EVolution Of Lineages in Vitro (EVOLV) platform, a high-throughput approach for generating diverse libraries of viable, drug-resistant cell lines from a common progenitor. EVOLV enables deeper insights into the genomics of drug resistance as well as into the complex interplay among genomic, transcriptomic, and functional layers during cancer evolution.
Melanoma is the most prevalent cause of skin cancer morbidity and mortality. In order to characterize the full range of somatic mutations that may drive the growth of melanoma, we are sequencing tumor and normal DNA from a set of roughly 150 melanomas. For the majority of samples (approximately 90% of the cases), mutations in protein coding genes will be assessed in the exonic DNA of tumor-normal pairs using hybrid capture and paired-end DNA sequencing. For a few of DNA samples (approximately 10% of the cases), the entire genomes will be analyzed to assess the possible contribution of complex structural rearrangements contributing to oncogenesis. The sequencing data are supplemented by copy number profiling on the same tumors using high-density SNP arrays. Integration of these approaches will enable the unbiased and comprehensive characterization of both known and novel recurrent DNA alterations that arise in melanoma.Versions 1-4 contain whole exome and bulk RNA sequencing data for patients with melanoma.Version 5 - We compared somatic genomic profiles from matched pre-treatment and post-resistance tumor biopsies in patients with metastatic melanoma who exhibited heterogeneous responses to immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs). This version includes whole exome sequencing (WES) data from 14 patients.
Establishment and characterization of two patient-derived xenograft models from HNSCC patients , initiatlly treatment-naive, and for which cetuximab-acquired resistant model couterparts have been generated. All models have been characterized at genomic level. HNSCC tissues were obtained from surgical resections at Cliniques universitaires St Luc in Brussels (Belgium).
Cancers are ecosystems of genetically related clones, competing across space and time for limited resources. To understand the clonal structure of primary breast cancer, we applied genome and targeted sequencing to 295 samples from 49 patients’ tumors. The extent of subclonal diversification varied considerably among patients and encompassed many spatial patterns, including local growth, intraductal dissemination and clonal intermixture. Landmarks of disease progression, such as acquiring invasive or metastatic potential, arose within detectable subclones of antecedent lesions, suggesting that subclonal mutations could be relevant if actionable. No defined temporal order of mutation was evident, with the commonest genes, including PIK3CA, TP53, BRCA2, PTEN and MYC, mutated early in some, late in others, often exhibiting parallel evolution across subclones. Signatures of homologous recombination deficiency correlated with response to neoadjuvant chemotherapy. Thus, the interplay of mutation, growth and competition drives clonal structures of breast cancer that are complex, variable across patients and clinically relevant.
