Targeted Deep Sequencing of Bladder Tumors Reveals Novel Associations between Cancer Gene Mutations and Mutational Signatures with Major Risk Factors.

Purpose: Exome- and whole-genome sequencing of muscle-invasive bladder cancer has revealed important insights into the molecular landscape; however, there are few studies of non-muscle-invasive bladder cancer with detailed risk factor information.

Experimental Design: We examined the relationship between smoking and other bladder cancer risk factors and somatic mutations and mutational signatures in bladder tumors. Targeted sequencing of frequently mutated genes in bladder cancer was conducted in 322 formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded bladder tumors from a population-based case-control study. Logistic regression was used to calculate odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI), evaluating mutations and risk factors. We used SignatureEstimation to extract four known single base substitution mutational signatures and Poisson regression to calculate risk ratios (RR) and 95% CIs, evaluating signatures and risk factors.

Results: Non-silent mutations were more common in females than males (OR = 1.83; 95% CI, 1.05-3.19). There was striking heterogeneity in the relationship between smoking status and established single base substitution signatures: current smoking status was associated with greater Signature mutations compared with former ( = 0.024) and never smoking (RR = 1.40; 95% CI, 1.09-1.80; = 0.008), former smoking was associated with greater APOBEC-Signature13 mutations ( = 0.05), and never smoking was associated with greater APOBEC-Signature2 mutations (RR = 1.54; 95% CI, 1.17-2.01; = 0.002). There was evidence that smoking duration (the component most strongly associated with bladder cancer risk) was associated with Signature mutations and APOBEC-Signature13 mutations among current ( = 0.005) and former smokers ( = 0.0004), respectively.

Conclusions: These data quantify the contribution of bladder cancer risk factors to mutational burden and suggest different signature enrichments among never, former, and current smokers.