Paediatrics Publications
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
12-2020
Journal
JACC: Cardiooncology
Volume
2
Issue
5
First Page
690
Last Page
706
URL with Digital Object Identifier
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaccao.2020.11.004
Abstract
BACKGROUND Despite known clinical risk factors, predicting anthracycline cardiotoxicity remains challenging. OBJECTIVES This study sought to develop a clinical and genetic risk prediction model for anthracycline cardiotoxicity in childhood cancer survivors. METHODS We performed exome sequencing in 289 childhood cancer survivors at least 3 years from anthracycline exposure. In a nested case-control design, 183 case patients with reduced left ventricular ejection fraction despite low-dose doxorubicin (<= 250 mg/m(2)), and 106 control patients with preserved left ventricular ejection fraction despite doxorubicin >250 mg/m(2) were selected as extreme phenotypes. Rare/low-frequency variants were collapsed to identify genes differentially enriched for variants between case patients and control patients. The expression levels of 5 top-ranked genes were evaluated in human induced pluripotent stem cell-derived cardiomyocytes, and variant enrichment was confirmed in a replication cohort. Using random forest, a risk prediction model that included genetic and clinical predictors was developed. RESULTS Thirty-one genes were differentially enriched for variants between case patients and control patients (p < 0.001). Only 42.6% case patients harbored a variant in these genes compared to 89.6% control patients (odds ratio: 0.09; 95% confidence interval: 0.04 to 0.17; p = 3.98 x 10(-15)). A risk prediction model for cardiotoxicity that included clinical and genetic factors had a higher prediction accuracy and lower misclassification rate compared to the clinical-only model. In vitro inhibition of gene-associated pathways (PI3KR2, ZNF827) provided protection from cardiotoxicity in cardiomyocytes. CONCLUSIONS Our study identified variants in cardiac injury pathway genes that protect against cardiotoxicity and informed the development of a prediction model for delayed anthracycline cardiotoxicity, and it also provided new targets in autophagy genes for the development of cardio-protective drugs.