Bladder cancer is the fourth most common cancer among men in the United States. While low-grade tumors have a very favorable prognosis, muscle-invasive and metastatic tumors have poorer survival rates. In this month's issue of JCI Insight, William Kim, Benjamin Vincent, and a research team from the University of North Carolina characterized a new subtype of muscle-invasive bladder cancer that shares molecular signatures with some forms of breast cancer. A subset of triple-negative breast cancers express low levels of the tight junction protein claudin. The UNC researchers now document that claudin-low tumors represent a specific subtype of bladder cancer as well. Using data from the The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) urothelial bladder carcinoma data set, they found that claudin-low tumors express high levels of immune-related genes, but also show a strong signature of immunosuppression. These finding suggest that claudin-low bladder cancers may be particularly responsive to immunotherapy-based treatments that derepress the immune system. Future studies will be needed to clinically test immune checkpoint inhibitors in this population.
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TITLE:
Claudin-low bladder tumors are immune infiltrated and actively immune suppressed
AUTHOR CONTACT:
William Kim
University of North Carolina
Email: wykim@med.unc.edu
Benjamin Vincent
University of North Carolina
Email: benjamin_vincent@med.unc.edu
View this article at: http://insight.jci.org/articles/view/85902?key=8d7862bc6a73d5756c17
JCI Insight is the newest publication from the American Society of Clinical Investigation, a nonprofit honor organization of physician-scientists. JCI Insight is dedicated to publishing a range of translational biomedical research with an emphasis on rigorous experimental methods and data reporting. All articles published in JCI Insight are freely available at the time of publication. For more information about JCI Insight and all of the latest articles go to http://www.insight.jci.org.
Journal
JCI Insight