Metastatic Prostate Cancers with BRCA2 versus ATM Mutations Exhibit Divergent Molecular Features and Clinical Outcomes

Authors:

Justin Hwang 1, Xiaolei Shi 2, Andrew Elliott 3, Taylor E Arnoff 4, Julie McGrath 5, Joanne Xiu 3, Phillip Walker 6, Hannah E Bergom 7, Abderrahman Day 7, Shihab Ahmed 2, Sydney Tape 7, Allison Makovec 7, Atef Ali 7, Rami M Shaker 7, Eamon Toye 2, Rachel Passow 8, John R Lozada 7, Jinhua Wang 9, Emil Lou 10, Kent W Mouw 11, Benedito A Carneiro 12, Elisabeth I Heath 13, Rana R McKay 14, W Michael Korn 15, Chadi Nabhan 16, Charles J Ryan 17, Emmanuel S Antonarakis 7

Abstract

Purpose: In patients with metastatic prostate cancer (mPC), ATM and BRCA2 mutations dictate differences in PARPi inhibitor response and other therapies. We interrogated the molecular features of ATM- and BRCA2-mutated mPC to explain the divergent clinical outcomes and inform future treatment decisions.

Experimental design: We examined a novel set of 1,187 mPCs after excluding microsatellite-instable (MSI) tumors. We stratified these based on ATM (n = 88) or BRCA2 (n = 98) mutations. As control groups, mPCs with mutations in 12 other homologous recombination repair (HRR) genes were considered non-BRCA2/ATM HRR-deficient (HRDother, n = 193), whereas lack of any HRR mutations were considered HRR-proficient (HRP; n = 808). Gene expression analyses were performed using Limma. Real-world overall survival was determined from insurance claims data.

Results: In noncastrate mPCs, only BRCA2-mutated mPCs exhibited worse clinical outcomes to AR-targeted therapies. In castrate mPCs, both ATM and BRCA2 mutations exhibited worse clinical outcomes to AR-targeted therapies. ATM-mutated mPCs had reduced TP53 mutations and harbored coamplification of 11q13 genes, including CCND1 and genes in the FGF family. BRCA2-mutated tumors showed elevated genomic loss-of-heterozygosity scores and were often tumor mutational burden high. BRCA2-mutated mPCs had upregulation of cell-cycle genes and were enriched in cell-cycle signaling programs. This was distinct from ATM-mutated tumors.

Conclusions: Tumoral ATM and BRCA2 mutations are associated with differential clinical outcomes when patients are stratified by treatments, including hormonal or taxane therapies. ATM- and BRCA2-mutated tumors exhibited differences in co-occurring molecular features. These unique molecular features may inform therapeutic decisions and development of novel therapies.

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