The landscape of CD28, CD80, CD86, CTLA4, and ICOS DNA methylation in head and neck squamous cell carcinomas.

Abstract

CTLA-4 blocking therapeutic antibodies are currently under investigation in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC). A better understanding of the epigenetic regulation of the CD28 superfamily members CD28, CTLA-4, and ICOS and their B7 ligands, CD80 and CD86, could support the development of biomarkers for response prediction to anti-CTLA-4 immunotherapy. We investigated methylation of the encoding genes CD28, CTLA4, ICOS, CD80, and CD86 at single CpG resolution (51 CpG sites) in a cohort of HNSCC (N = 528) and normal adjacent tissue samples (N = 50) provided by The Cancer Genome Research Atlas, in isolated blood leukocytes from healthy individuals (N = 28), and HNSCC cell lines (N = ..