Gene Expression Profiling, Digital Spatial Profiling and Multiplex Immunohistochemistry of the Tumor-Immune Microenvironment in HNSCC Tumors

AACR 2020 -- The complex and dynamic nature of the tumor-immune microenvironment (TME) presents challenges for identification of robust and predictive biomarkers in immuno-oncology (IO). A combination of different immune cells characterized by specific immuno-activating or inhibiting expression patterns, in addition to cytokines in the environment, present several unique niche environments not only across but within tumor samples. Gene expression profiling allows for sensitive and high-throughput analysis of genes and signatures associated with the tumor, the immune response, and the TME, allowing examination of tumor-immune cell interactions at a whole tissue high level view. Multiplex immunohistochemistry (mIHC) facilitates the ability to detect, phenotype, and quantify spatial relationships of individual cells within the tumor microenvironment. We used these approaches to generate multiple data sets from a cohort of HNSCC tumor samples.