The Integrated Genomic Landscape of Thymic Epithelial Tumors

Milan Radovich, Curtis R. Pickering, Ina Felau, Gavin Ha, Hailei Zhang, Heejoon Jo, Katherine A. Hoadley, Pavana Anur, Jiexin Zhang, Mike McLellan, Reanne Bowlby, Thomas Matthew (+176 others)
2018 Cancer Cell  
Thymic epithelial tumors (TETs) are one of the rarest adult malignancies. Among TETs, thymoma is the most predominant, characterized by a unique association with autoimmune diseases, followed by thymic carcinoma, which is less common but more clinically aggressive. Using multi-platform omics analyses on 117 TETs, we define four subtypes of these tumors defined by genomic hallmarks and an association with survival and World Health Organization histological subtype. We further demonstrate a
more » ... prevalence of a thymoma-specific mutated oncogene, GTF2I, and explore its biological effects on multi-platform analysis. We further observe enrichment of mutations in HRAS, NRAS, and TP53. Last, we identify a molecular link between thymoma and the autoimmune disease myasthenia gravis, characterized by tumoral overexpression of muscle autoantigens, and increased aneuploidy.
doi:10.1016/j.ccell.2018.01.003 pmid:29438696 pmcid:PMC5994906 fatcat:5khwqh4jsjdyhilaclblvv7a7q