Genomic characterization of thymic epithelial tumors reveals critical genes underlying tumorigenesis and poor prognosis

Thymic epithelial tumors (TETs) are rare mediastinal tumors whose tumorigenesis mechanism is poorly understood. Characterization of molecular alterations in TETs may contribute to a better understanding of tumorigenesis and prognosis. Hybrid capture-based next-generation sequencing was performed on tumor tissues from 47 TETs (39 thymomas and 8 thymic carcinomas) to detect mutations in 315 tumor-associated genes. In total, 178 nonsynonymous mutations were identified, with a median of 3.79 per tumor in 47 TETs. Higher tumor mutation burden (TMB) level was more common in older TET patients, and significantly associated with the more advanced pathological type, especially in thymic carcinomas (TC) patients. The gene mutation profiles of B1-3, A/AB, and TC patients varied greatly. In the actionable mutations analysis, we found 32 actionable mutations in 24 genes. Among them, NFKBIA and TP53 mutations was the most frequently, which were only identified in TCs. Additionally, TCGA database analysis found that the expression of NFKBIA mRNA in the TCs were significantly higher than thymomas. TET patients with high NFKBIA expression had shorter overall survival compared with patients with low/medium NFKBIA expression, thus providing insights to consider NFKBIA as a potential prognosis biomarker and therapeutic target in TETs.