A cellular and spatial atlas of TP53-associated tissue remodeling defines a multicellular tumor ecosystem in lung adenocarcinoma.

Abstract

Tumor protein p53 (TP53) is the most frequently mutated gene across many cancers and is associated with shorter overall survival in lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD). Here, to define how TP53 mutations affect the LUAD tumor microenvironment (TME), we constructed a multiomic cellular and spatial atlas of 23 treatment-naive human lung tumors. We found that TP53-mutant malignant cells lose alveolar identity and upregulate highly proliferative and entropic gene expression programs consistently across LUAD tumors from resectable clinical samples, genetically engineered mouse models, and cell lines harboring a wide spectrum of TP53 mutations. We further identified a multicellular tumor niche composed of SPP1⁺ macrophages and collagen-expressing fibroblasts that coincides with hypoxic, prometastatic expression programs in TP53-mutant tumors. Spatially correlated angiostatic and immune checkpoint interactions, including CD274-PDCD1 and PVR-TIGIT, are also enriched in TP53-mutant LUAD tumors and likely engender a more favorable response to checkpoint blockade therapy. Our systematic approach can be used to investigate genotype-associated TMEs in other cancers.