Integrated multi-omics profiling reveals the role of the DNA methylation landscape in shaping biological heterogeneity and clinical behaviour of metastatic melanoma
The biological and clinical relevance of the DNA methylation landscape in metastatic melanoma (MM) remains underexplored. In a retrospective cohort of 191 MM lesions from 165 AJCC Stage III and IV patients (EPICA cohort) we identified four tumor subsets (i.e. DEMethylated, LOW, INTermediate and CIMP) with progressively increasing levels of DNA methylation. These findings were validated in the TCGA MM. In EPICA, patients with LOW methylation tumors exhibited a significantly longer survival and a lower progression rate to more advanced AJCC stages, compared to patients with CIMP tumors. Furthermore, in an independent adjuvant immune checkpoint blockade MM cohort, patients with DEM/LOW pre-therapy lesions showed significantly longer relapse-free survival compared to those with INT/CIMP lesions. RNA-seq data analysis revealed that LOW and CIMP EPICA tumors showed opposite activation of master molecules influencing prognostic target genes, and differential expression of immunotherapy response and melanoma differentiation signatures. Compared to CIMP tumors, LOW lesions showed enrichment for pre-exhausted and exhausted T cells and more frequent retention of HLA Class I antigens. The differentiation and immune-related transcriptional features associated with LOW vs CIMP lesions were tumor-intrinsic programs retained in-vitro by melanoma cell lines. Consistently, treatment of differentiated melanoma cell lines with a DNMT inhibitor induced global DNA de-methylation, promoted de-differentiation and upregulated viral mimicry and IFNG predictive signatures of immunotherapy response. These findings underscore the role of DNA methylation in driving MM biological and clinical heterogeneity and support exploration of methylome targeting strategies for precision immunotherapy in melanoma.