Morphological Heterogeneity in Pancreatic Cancer Reflects Structural and Functional Divergence

Simple Summary Pancreatic cancer has a poor prognosis, which is largely due to resistance to treatment. Tumor heterogeneity is a known cause for treatment failure and has been studied at the molecular level. Morphological heterogeneity is common but has not been investigated, despite the fact that pathology examination is an integral part of clinical diagnostics. This study assessed whether morphological heterogeneity reflects structural and functional diversity in key cancer biological processes. Using archival tissues from resected pancreatic cancer, we selected four common and distinct morphological phenotypes and demonstrated that these differed significantly for a panel of 26 structural and functional features of the cancer-cell and stromal compartments. The strong link between these features and morphological phenotypes allowed prediction of the latter based on the results for the panel of features. The findings of this study indicate that morphological heterogeneity reflects biological diversity and that its assessment may potentially provide clinically relevant information. Inter- and intratumor heterogeneity is an important cause of treatment failure. In human pancreatic cancer (PC), heterogeneity has been investigated almost exclusively at the genomic and transcriptional level. Morphological heterogeneity, though prominent and potentially easily assessable in clinical practice, remains unexplored. This proof-of-concept study aims at demonstrating that morphological heterogeneity reflects structural and functional divergence. From the wide morphological spectrum of conventional PC, four common and distinctive patterns were investigated in 233 foci from 39 surgical specimens. Twenty-six features involved in key biological processes in PC were analyzed (immuno-)histochemically and morphometrically: cancer cell proliferation (Ki67) and migration (collagen fiber alignment, MMP14), cancer stem cells (CD44, CD133, ALDH1), amount, composition and spatial arrangement of extracellular matrix (epithelial proximity, total collagen, collagen I and III, fibronectin, hyaluronan), cancer-associated fibroblasts (density, alpha SMA), and cancer-stroma interactions (integrins alpha 2, alpha 5, alpha 1; caveolin-1). All features differed significantly between at least two of the patterns. Stromal and cancer-cell-related features co-varied with morphology and allowed prediction of the morphological pattern. In conclusion, morphological heterogeneity in the cancer-cell and stromal compartments of PC correlates with structural and functional diversity. As such, histopathology has the potential to inform on the operationality of key biological processes in individual tumors.

Automated summary

Pancreatic cancer has a poor prognosis mainly due to resistance to treatment, with tumor heterogeneity being a known cause for treatment failure. This study demonstrates that morphological heterogeneity in pancreatic cancer reflects structural and functional diversity, allowing for prediction of morphological patterns and potentially providing clinically relevant information. Histopathology has the potential to inform on the operationality of key biological processes in individual tumors.