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BMC Gastroenterology
Published in: BMC Gastroenterology 1/2015

Open Access 01-12-2015 | Research article

Heterogeneity of amplification of HER2, EGFR, CCND1 and MYC in gastric cancer

Authors: Phillip Stahl, Carsten Seeschaaf, Patrick Lebok, Asad Kutup, Maximillian Bockhorn, Jakob R Izbicki, Carsten Bokemeyer, Ronald Simon, Guido Sauter, Andreas H Marx

Published in: BMC Gastroenterology | Issue 1/2015

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Abstract

Background

Intra-tumor heterogeneity is a potential cause for failure of targeted therapy in gastric cancer, but the extent of heterogeneity of established (HER2) or potential (EGFR, CCND1) target genes and prognostic gene alterations (MYC) had not been systematically studied.

Methods

To study heterogeneity of these genes in a large patient cohort, a heterogeneity tissue microarray was constructed containing 0.6 mm tissue cores from 9 different areas of the primary gastric cancers of 113 patients and matched lymph node metastases from 61 of these patients. Dual color fluorescence in-situ hybridization was performed to assess amplification of HER2, EGFR, CCND1 and MYC using established thresholds (ratio ≥ 2.0). Her2 immunohistochemistry (IHC) was performed in addition.

Results

Amplification was found in 17.4% of 109 interpretable cases for HER2, 6.4% for EGFR, 17.4% for CCND1, and 24.8% for MYC. HER2 amplification was strongly linked to protein overexpression by IHC in a spot-by-spot analysis (p < 0.0001). Intra-tumor heterogeneity was found in the primary tumors of 9 of 19 (47.3%) cancers with HER2, 8 of 17 (47.0%) cancers with CCND1, 5 of 7 (71.4%) cancers with EGFR, and 23 of 27 (85.2%) cancers with MYC amplification. Amplification heterogeneity was particularly frequent in case of low-level amplification (<10 gene copies). While the amplification status was often different between metastases, unequivocal intra-tumor heterogeneity was not found in individual metastases.

Conclusion

The data of our study demonstrate that heterogeneity is common for biomarkers in gastric cancer. Given that both TMA tissue cores and clinical tumor biopsies analyze only a small fraction of the tumor bulk, it can be concluded that such heterogeneity may potentially limit treatment decisions based on the analysis of a single clinical cancer biopsy.
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Metadata
Title
Heterogeneity of amplification of HER2, EGFR, CCND1 and MYC in gastric cancer
Authors
Phillip Stahl
Carsten Seeschaaf
Patrick Lebok
Asad Kutup
Maximillian Bockhorn
Jakob R Izbicki
Carsten Bokemeyer
Ronald Simon
Guido Sauter
Andreas H Marx
Publication date
01-12-2015
Publisher
BioMed Central
Published in
BMC Gastroenterology / Issue 1/2015
Electronic ISSN: 1471-230X
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1186/s12876-015-0231-4

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