Recovery of T-cell receptor V(D)J recombination reads from lower grade glioma exome files correlates with reduced survival and advanced cancer grade.

BACKGROUND: The immune system plays an important role in cancer survival and disease progression, but the role of the immune system in lower grade glioma (LGG) is largely unknown METHODS: To investigate the relationship between lymphocyte infiltration into the LGG microenvironment and LGG survival, we used a genomics approach to recover productive V(D)J recombination sequences from primary tumor, whole exome sequence files available via the cancer genome atlas RESULTS: Increased T-cell receptor V(D)J read recovery, indicating increased T-lymphocyte infiltration into the primary tumor site, strongly correlated with decreased overall and disease-free survival; and with a more advanced cancer grade. In addition, this result was more significant than related results obtainable using RNASeq-based, T-cell biomarkers, similar to a recently reported case for pancreatic cancer, where the recovery of BCR recombination reads from WXS files clearly associated with reduced survival, despite the fact that no such association was demonstrable with B-cell based, RNASeq biomarkers CONCLUSIONS: Overall, the results presented here support V(D)J recombination read recovery, from whole exome files, as a uniquely useful biomarker for distinct LGG survival rates.