New publication: Mutanome and expression of immune response genes in microsatelite stable colon cancer

Recently, the paper Mutanome and expression of immune response genes in microsatellite stable colon cancer has been published in the Oncotarget journal. The first author is Rebeca Sanz, who has a PhD in Biology, from the Cancer Prevention and Control Program. Victor Moreno, Adriana Lopez-Doriga and Henar Alonso, among others, are also listed as authors.

We found that tumors with better prognosis showed a tendency to generate a higher number of immunogenic epitopes, as well as an up-regulation of genes involved in the antigen processing machinery. Moreover, tumors with higher T-cell infiltration also showed better prognosis. Stratifying by consensus molecular subtype, CMS4 tumors showed the highest association between expression levels of genes involved in the antigen presentation machinery and prognosis. Thus, we hypothesize that a subset of stage II microsatellite stable CRC tumors are able to generate an immune response in the host via MHC class I antigen presentation, directly related with a better prognosis.