Genomic alterations in fibroblast growth factor receptor (FGFR) genes are present in a small number of metastatic pancreatic ductal adenocarcinomas (PDAC) and may represent an emerging subgroup of patients likely to benefit from FGFR targeted therapies. Here we present four FGFR2 fusion-positive metastatic PDAC patients who exhibited durable responses or disease control to FGFR kinase inhibitors. Utilizing our custom FGFR focused cell-free DNA assay, FGFR-Dx, we serially monitored variant allele fractions of FGFR2 fusions during FGFR inhibitor treatment and observed dynamic changes correlating with clinical responses.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCommercial liquid biopsy assays are routinely used by oncologists to monitor disease response and resistance to therapy. Additionally, in cases where tumor tissue is not available, clinicians may rely on cell-free DNA (cfDNA) testing as a surrogate for comprehensive tumor testing. While some gene rearrangements are well detected, current commercial liquid biopsy assays exhibit low sensitivity for fibroblast growth factor receptor ( ) rearrangements.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPurpose: Programmed cell death protein-1 (PD-1) receptor and ligand interactions are the target of immunotherapies for more than 20 cancer types. Biomarkers that predict response to immunotherapy are microsatellite instability, tumor mutational burden, and programmed death ligand-1 (PD-L1) immunohistochemistry. Structural variations (SVs) in PD-L1 () and PD-L2 () have been observed in cancer, but the comprehensive landscape is unknown.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFUnlabelled: Coevolution of tumor cells and adjacent stromal elements is a key feature during tumor progression; however, the precise regulatory mechanisms during this process remain unknown. Here, we show stromal p53 loss enhances oncogenic KrasG12D, but not ErbB2, driven tumorigenesis in murine mammary epithelia. Stroma-specific p53 deletion increases both epithelial and fibroblast proliferation in mammary glands bearing the KrasG12D oncogene in epithelia, while concurrently increasing DNA damage and/or DNA replication stress and decreasing apoptosis in the tumor cells proper.
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