Mammals possess a remarkable ability to maintain and defend a constant internal milieu against diverse environmental threats. Unsurprisingly, the two systems tasked with these duties, metabolism and ...immunity, have evolved to share a common modular architecture that allows extensive bidirectional communication and coordination. Indeed, recent observations have highlighted numerous functionally critical immune regulatory modules located within diverse metabolic circuits. In this review, we discuss the architectural commonality between immunity and metabolism and highlight how these two primordially disparate systems leverage shared regulatory axes to coordinate metabolic physiology under conditions of normality and chronic overnutrition. Such an integrated perspective both advances our understanding of basic physiology and highlights potential opportunities for therapeutic intervention in metabolic dysfunction.
Metabolism and immunity are inextricably linked both to each other and to organism-wide function, allowing mammals to adapt to changes in their internal and external environments. In the modern ...context of obesogenic diets and lifestyles, however, these adaptive responses can have deleterious consequences. In this Review, we discuss the pleiotropic actions of inflammation and insulin resistance in metabolic homeostasis and disease. An appreciation of the adaptive context in which these responses arose is useful for understanding their pathogenic actions in disease.
Obesity and its attendant metabolic disorders represent the great public health challenge of our time. Recent evidence suggests that onset of inflammation in metabolic tissues pathogenically links ...obesity to insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes. In this review, we briefly summarize the extant literature, paying special attention to the central role of the tissue-associated macrophage in the initiation of metabolic inflammation. We argue that rather than representing simple inflammatory disease, obesity and metabolic syndrome represent derangements in macrophage activation with concomitant loss of metabolic coordination. As such, the sequelae of obesity are as much products of the loss of positive macrophage influences as they are of the presence of deleterious inflammation. The therapeutic implications of this conclusion are profound because they suggest that pharmacologic targeting of macrophage activation, rather than simply inflammation, might be efficacious in treating this global epidemic.
Type 2 innate lymphoid cells (ILC2s), an innate source of the type 2 cytokines interleukin (IL)-5 and -13, participate in the maintenance of tissue homeostasis. Although type 2 immunity is critically ...important for mediating metabolic adaptations to environmental cold, the functions of ILC2s in beige or brown fat development are poorly defined. We report here that activation of ILC2s by IL-33 is sufficient to promote the growth of functional beige fat in thermoneutral mice. Mechanistically, ILC2 activation results in the proliferation of bipotential adipocyte precursors (APs) and their subsequent commitment to the beige fat lineage. Loss- and gain-of-function studies reveal that ILC2- and eosinophil-derived type 2 cytokines stimulate signaling via the IL-4Rα in PDGFRα+ APs to promote beige fat biogenesis. Together, our results highlight a critical role for ILC2s and type 2 cytokines in the regulation of adipocyte precursor numbers and fate, and as a consequence, adipose tissue homeostasis.
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•IL-33 activates ILC2s to stimulate biogenesis of thermogenic beige fat•Activated ILC2s promote proliferation and commitment of adipocyte precursors•IL-4 and IL-13 control the physiologic expansion of beige adipocyte precursors•Signaling via IL-4Rα in adipocyte progenitors controls beige fat biogenesis
Activation of type 2 innate lymphoid cells (ILCs) and type 2 immunity directly promote the proliferation of adipocyte precursors and their subsequent commitment to the beige fat lineage, revealing a role for ILCs in thermal homeostasis.
To analytically and clinically validate a circulating cell-free tumor DNA sequencing test for comprehensive tumor genotyping and demonstrate its clinical feasibility.
Analytic validation was ...conducted according to established principles and guidelines. Blood-to-blood clinical validation comprised blinded external comparison with clinical droplet digital PCR across 222 consecutive biomarker-positive clinical samples. Blood-to-tissue clinical validation comprised comparison of digital sequencing calls to those documented in the medical record of 543 consecutive lung cancer patients. Clinical experience was reported from 10,593 consecutive clinical samples.
Digital sequencing technology enabled variant detection down to 0.02% to 0.04% allelic fraction/2.12 copies with ≤0.3%/2.24-2.76 copies 95% limits of detection while maintaining high specificity prevalence-adjusted positive predictive values (PPV) >98%. Clinical validation using orthogonal plasma- and tissue-based clinical genotyping across >750 patients demonstrated high accuracy and specificity positive percent agreement (PPAs) and negative percent agreement (NPAs) >99% and PPVs 92%-100%. Clinical use in 10,593 advanced adult solid tumor patients demonstrated high feasibility (>99.6% technical success rate) and clinical sensitivity (85.9%), with high potential actionability (16.7% with FDA-approved on-label treatment options; 72.0% with treatment or trial recommendations), particularly in non-small cell lung cancer, where 34.5% of patient samples comprised a directly targetable standard-of-care biomarker.
High concordance with orthogonal clinical plasma- and tissue-based genotyping methods supports the clinical accuracy of digital sequencing across all four types of targetable genomic alterations. Digital sequencing's clinical applicability is further supported by high rates of technical success and biomarker target discovery.
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Cell-free DNA (cfDNA) sequencing provides a noninvasive method for obtaining actionable genomic information to guide personalized cancer treatment, but the presence of multiple alterations in ...circulation related to treatment and tumor heterogeneity complicate the interpretation of the observed variants.
We describe the somatic mutation landscape of 70 cancer genes from cfDNA deep-sequencing analysis of 21,807 patients with treated, late-stage cancers across >50 cancer types. To facilitate interpretation of the genomic complexity of circulating tumor DNA in advanced, treated cancer patients, we developed methods to identify cfDNA copy-number driver alterations and cfDNA clonality.
Patterns and prevalence of cfDNA alterations in major driver genes for non-small cell lung, breast, and colorectal cancer largely recapitulated those from tumor tissue sequencing compendia (The Cancer Genome Atlas and COSMIC;
= 0.90-0.99), with the principal differences in alteration prevalence being due to patient treatment. This highly sensitive cfDNA sequencing assay revealed numerous subclonal tumor-derived alterations, expected as a result of clonal evolution, but leading to an apparent departure from mutual exclusivity in treatment-naïve tumors. Upon applying novel cfDNA clonality and copy-number driver identification methods, robust mutual exclusivity was observed among predicted truncal driver cfDNA alterations (FDR = 5 × 10
for
and
), in effect distinguishing tumor-initiating alterations from secondary alterations. Treatment-associated resistance, including both novel alterations and parallel evolution, was common in the cfDNA cohort and was enriched in patients with targetable driver alterations (>18.6% patients).
Together, these retrospective analyses of a large cfDNA sequencing data set reveal subclonal structures and emerging resistance in advanced solid tumors.
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Chronic inflammation is now recognized as a key step in the pathogenesis of obesity-induced insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes mellitus. This low-grade inflammation is mediated by the ...inflammatory (classical) activation of recruited and resident macrophages that populate metabolic tissues, including adipose tissue and liver. These findings have led to the concept that infiltration by and activation of macrophages in adipose tissue are causally linked to obesity-induced insulin resistance. Studies have shown, however, that alternatively activated macrophages taking residence in adipose tissue and liver perform beneficial functions in obesity-induced metabolic disease. Alternatively activated macrophages reduce insulin resistance in obese mice by attenuating tissue inflammation and increasing oxidative metabolism in liver and skeletal muscle. The discovery that distinct subsets of macrophages are involved in the promotion or attenuation of insulin resistance suggests that pathways controlling macrophage activation can potentially be targeted to treat these comorbidities of obesity. Thus, this Review focuses on the stimuli and mechanisms that control classical and alternative activation of tissue macrophages, and how these macrophage activation programs modulate insulin action in peripheral tissues. The functional importance of macrophage activation is further discussed in the context of host defense to highlight the crosstalk between innate immunity and metabolism.
To analytically and clinically validate microsatellite instability (MSI) detection using cell-free DNA (cfDNA) sequencing.
Pan-cancer MSI detection using Guardant360 was analytically validated ...according to established guidelines and clinically validated using 1,145 cfDNA samples for which tissue MSI status based on standard-of-care tissue testing was available. The landscape of cfDNA-based MSI across solid tumor types was investigated in a cohort of 28,459 clinical plasma samples. Clinical outcomes for 16 patients with cfDNA MSI-H gastric cancer treated with immunotherapy were evaluated.
cfDNA MSI evaluation was shown to have high specificity, precision, and sensitivity, with a limit of detection of 0.1% tumor content. In evaluable patients, cfDNA testing accurately detected 87% (71/82) of tissue MSI-H and 99.5% of tissue microsatellite stable (863/867) for an overall accuracy of 98.4% (934/949) and a positive predictive value of 95% (71/75). Concordance of cfDNA MSI with tissue PCR and next-generation sequencing was significantly higher than IHC. Prevalence of cfDNA MSI for major cancer types was consistent with those reported for tissue. Finally, robust clinical activity of immunotherapy treatment was seen in patients with advanced gastric cancer positive for MSI by cfDNA, with 63% (10/16) of patients achieving complete or partial remission with sustained clinical benefit.
cfDNA-based MSI detection using Guardant360 is highly concordant with tissue-based testing, enabling highly accurate detection of MSI status concurrent with comprehensive genomic profiling and expanding access to immunotherapy for patients with advanced cancer for whom current testing practices are inadequate.
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Complete and timely tissue genotyping is challenging, leading to significant numbers of patients with newly diagnosed metastatic non-small cell lung cancer (mNSCLC) being undergenotyped for all eight ...genomic biomarkers recommended by professional guidelines. We aimed to demonstrate noninferiority of comprehensive cell-free DNA (cfDNA) relative to physician discretion standard-of-care (SOC) tissue genotyping to identify guideline-recommended biomarkers in patients with mNSCLC.
Prospectively enrolled patients with previously untreated mNSCLC undergoing physician discretion SOC tissue genotyping submitted a pretreatment blood sample for comprehensive cfDNA analysis (Guardant360).
Among 282 patients, physician discretion SOC tissue genotyping identified a guideline-recommended biomarker in 60 patients versus 77 cfDNA identified patients (21.3% vs. 27.3%;
< 0.0001 for noninferiority). In tissue-positive patients, the biomarker was identified alone (12/60) or concordant with cfDNA (48/60), an 80% cfDNA clinical sensitivity for any guideline-recommended biomarker. For FDA-approved targets (
) concordance was >98.2% with 100% positive predictive value for cfDNA versus tissue (34/34
or
-positive patients). Utilizing cfDNA, in addition to tissue, increased detection by 48%, from 60 to 89 patients, including those with negative, not assessed, or insufficient tissue results. cfDNA median turnaround time was significantly faster than tissue (9 vs. 15 days;
< 0.0001). Guideline-complete genotyping was significantly more likely (268 vs. 51;
< 0.0001).
In the largest cfDNA study in previously untreated mNSCLC, a validated comprehensive cfDNA test identifies guideline-recommended biomarkers at a rate at least as high as SOC tissue genotyping, with high tissue concordance, more rapidly and completely than tissue-based genotyping.
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