Genomic characteristics of invasive mucinous adenocarcinoma of the lung with multiple pulmonary sites of involvement

Invasive mucinous adenocarcinoma (IMA) of the lung frequently presents with diffuse pneumonic-type features or multifocal lesions, which are regarded as a pattern of intrapulmonary metastases. However, the genomics of multifocal IMAs have not been well studied. We performed whole exome sequencing on samples taken from 2 to 5 regions in seven patients with synchronous multifocal IMAs of the lung (24 regions total). Early initiating driver events, such as KRAS, NKX2-1, TP53, or ARID1A mutations, are clonal mutations and were present in all multifocal IMAs in each patient. The tumor mutational burden of multifocal IMAs was low (mean: 1.13/mega base), but further analyses suggested intra-tumor heterogeneity. The mutational signature analysis found that IMAs were predominantly associated with endogenous mutational process (signature 1), APOBEC activity (signatures 2 and 13), and defective DNA mismatch repair (signature 6), but not related to smoking signature. IMAs synchronously located in the bilateral lower lobes of two patients with background usual interstitial pneumonia had different mutation types, suggesting that they were double primaries. In conclusion, genomic evidence found in this study indicated the clonal intrapulmonary spread of diffuse pneumonic-type or multifocal IMAs, although they can occur in multicentric origins in the background of usual interstitial pneumonia. IMAs exhibited a heterogeneous genomic landscape despite the low somatic mutation burden. Further studies are warranted to determine the clinical significance of the genomic characteristics of IMAs in expanded cohorts.