Somatic Mutations and Intratumoral Heterogeneity of MYH11 Gene in Gastric and Colorectal Cancers

Abstract

MYH11 functions as a contractile protein, converting chemical energy into mechanical energy through adenosine triphosphate hydrolysis. In cancers, an oncogenic fusion CBFB/MYH11 and frameshift mutations have been reported. Truncating mutants of MYH11 exhibited increased ATPase and motor activity, suggesting their roles in energy balance and movement of cancer cells. MYH11 gene has a mononucleotide repeat (C8) in the coding sequences that could be a mutational target in the cancers exhibiting microsatellite instability (MSI). We analyzed the C8 repeat in 79 gastric cancers (GCs) and 124 colorectal cancers (CRCs) including 113 high MSI (MSI-H) and 90 microsatellite stable/low MSI cases. We detected MYH11 frameshift mutations in 4 (11.8%) GCs and 17 (21.5%) CRCs with MSI-H (21/113, 18.6%), but not in microsatellite stable/low MSI cancers (0/90) (P<0.001). We also analyzed intratumoral heterogeneity (ITH) of the MYH11 frameshift mutations and found that 10 of 16 CRCs (62.5%) harbored the regional ITH. Our results show that MYH11 gene harbors somatic frameshift mutations mostly associated with mutational ITH, which together may be features of MSI-H GCs and CRCs. Practically, the data suggest that multiregional analysis is needed for a better evaluation of mutation status in MSI-H tumors to overcome ITH.