Pan-Cancer Landscape of B- and T-Lymphocyte Attenuator: Implications for Potential Immunotherapy Combinations

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PURPOSE Cotargetable immune pathways for available immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) may mediate response and mitigate resistance. Immune profiling may provide insights into potential immunotherapy combinations and guide ongoing clinical trials. This study investigated the transcriptomic expression and clinical implications of B- and T-lymphocyte attenuator (BTLA), a promising immune target. METHODS Altogether, 514 advanced/metastatic samples (pan-solid cancers) were analyzed using RNA sequencing. Transcriptomic expression was normalized to a reference population of 735 tumors and expressed as percentiles. BTLA, BTLA-related markers (herpes virus entry mediator [HVEM], CD160, LIGHT), and currently targetable immune pathway checkpoints (PD-1, PD-L1, PD-L2, cytotoxic T-cell lymphocyte-4 [CTLA-4], lymphocyte-activation gene 3) as well as clinical outcomes were evaluated. RESULTS High BTLA RNA expression (≥75th percentile) was observed in 19% of tumors (96 of 514). Approximately half of these patients (44 of 96) exhibited higher coexpression (RNA) of targetable checkpoints (cluster analysis). High BTLA expression was independently associated with elevated PD-1, CTLA-4, HVEM, and CD160 RNA levels and with a breast cancer diagnosis. Outcome analysis (Kaplan-Meier) indicated that high BTLA expression correlated with significantly longer survival among ICI recipients in univariable analysis, with a trend in multivariable Cox regression (adjusted hazard ratio, 0.43 [95% CI, 0.17 to 1.08], P = .07). Notably, expression patterns of BTLA, other immune checkpoints, and BTLA-interacting molecules (HVEM, CD160, LIGHT) varied from patient to patient. CONCLUSION High BTLA transcript expression correlates with high transcript levels of PD-1 and CTLA-4 and with high levels of its ligand HVEM. These findings might support combining anti–PD-1 or anti–CTLA-4 therapy with anti-BTLA. BTLA expression varied across cancers and showed diverse coexpression patterns with other immune markers, suggesting that individual immunomic analysis is needed as part of a precision immunotherapy approach to understanding response and resistance.

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