Exploring multisite heterogeneity of human basal cell carcinoma proteome and transcriptome

by Ariel Berl, Ofir Shir-az, Ilai Genish, Hadas Biran, Din Mann, Amrita Singh, Julia Wise, Vladimir Kravtsov, Debora Kidron, Alexander Golberg, Edward Vitkin, Zohar Yakhini, Avshalom Shalom

Basal cell carcinoma (BCC) is the most common type of skin cancer. Due to multiple, potential underlying molecular tumor aberrations, clinical treatment protocols are not well-defined. This study presents multisite molecular heterogeneity profiles of human BCC based on RNA and proteome profiling. Three areas from lesions excised from 9 patients were analyzed. The focus was gene expression profiles based on proteome and RNA measurements of intra-tumor heterogeneity from the same patient and inter-tumor heterogeneity in nodular, infiltrative, and superficial BCC tumor subtypes from different patients. We observed significant overlap in intra- and inter-tumor variability of proteome and RNA expression profiles, showing significant multisite heterogeneity of protein expression in the BCC tumors. Inter-subtype analysis has also identified unique proteins for each BCC subtype. This profiling leads to a deeper understanding of BCC molecular heterogeneity and potentially contributes to developing new sampling tools for personalized diagnostics therapeutic approaches to BCC.