The mutational landscape defines the proteome and spatial organization of tumor, stroma and immune cells in ovarian cancer

Dabke, K.; Gull, N.; Kreimer, S.; Peng, P.-C.; Diaz, M.; Cheikh, B. B.; Dhawan, A.; Evans, K.; Ng, N.; Yuan, X.; Rimel, B.; Li, A. J.; Karlan, B. Y.; Knott, S. V.; Gayther, S. A.; Parker, S. J.; Jones, M. R.

doi:10.1101/2025.06.01.655822

bioRxiv · 10.1101/2025.06.01.655822

The mutational landscape defines the proteome and spatial organization of tumor, stroma and immune cells in ovarian cancer

Dabke, K.·Gull, N.·Kreimer, S.·Peng, P.-C.·Diaz, M.·Cheikh, B. B.·Dhawan, A.·Evans, K.·Ng, N.·Yuan, X.·Rimel, B.·Li, A. J.·Karlan, B. Y.·Knott, S. V.·Gayther, S. A.·Parker, S. J.·Jones, M. R.

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Abstract

High-grade serous ovarian cancer (HGSOC) is a highly aggressive and lethal form of ovarian cancer. Challenges to diagnosis and treatment include a lack of effective screening methods for early detection, the absence of cancer-specific symptoms, and the development of chemoresistance. The genomic instability of HGSOC, further complicated by homologous recombination deficiency (HRD), leads to heterogeneity in HGSOC tumors and patient response to treatment. This makes it challenging to develop a single, effective diagnostic and treatment approach for this disease. Proteogenomic studies have provided some insight into HGSOC biology, but a deeper understanding of the tumor proteome through chemotherapy and disease recurrence is needed. Here we have profiled the proteome of tumors from 29 HGSOC patients before and after multiple rounds of chemotherapy. The proteome of HGSOC tumors remained unchanged for individual patients even after numerous rounds of chemotherapy. Differential expression analysis revealed known and novel proteins associated with chemoresistance and HRD status, further supported by similar changes at the genetic and epigenetic levels. We found that HRD affected proteins related to immune pathways. HRD was also associated with more shared T cell receptor (TCR) CDR3 repertoires of tumor-infiltrating T cells and increased neoantigen counts. ERAP1, a protein involved in peptide trimming before antigen presentation to immune cells via MHC-class I, was overexpressed in homologous recombination proficient (HRP) tumors and negatively correlated to neoantigen count. Its potential role in immune suppression in HRP tumors makes it an attractive therapeutic target that may be effective in combination with immunotherapy, particularly for HRP tumors. 26-plex immunostaining of HGSOC whole tissues further revealed significant differences in the spatial proximities of immune cells to each other and to tumor cells based on HRD status. Through proteomic and imaging analysis, this work has shown that the immune landscape of HGSOC tumors is influenced by homologous recombination status and identified candidate drivers of HGSOC biology.

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Dabke, K., Gull, N., Kreimer, S., Peng, P.-C., Diaz, M., Cheikh, B. B., Dhawan, A., Evans, K., Ng, N., Yuan, X., Rimel, B., Li, A. J., Karlan, B. Y., Knott, S. V., Gayther, S. A., Parker, S. J., Jones, M. R.. 2025-06-03. The mutational landscape defines the proteome and spatial organization of tumor, stroma and immune cells in ovarian cancer. https://doi.org/10.1101/2025.06.01.655822

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