Pan-cancer analysis reveals homologous recombination deficiency score as a predictive marker for immunotherapy responders

The immune context of the tumor microenvironment (TME) is critical for effective immunotherapy. Nonetheless, DNA-based biomarkers for the immune-sensitive TME and the identification of immune checkpoint inhibitor (ICI) responders are under-explored. This study aims to comprehensively landscape the homologous recombination deficiency (HRD) score, an emerging hallmark for tumor genome instability that triggers immune responsiveness across major cancer types, and to unveil their link to the TME and immunotherapeutic response. The HRD-associated genomic scars were characterized in 9088 tumor samples across 32 cancer types from TCGA. We evaluated the HRD score’s performance in classifying ICI responders using an independent breast cancer cohort (GSE87049) and 11 in vivo murine mammary tumor models treated with anti-PD1/CTLA4 regimen (GSE124821). This study revealed a broad association between HRD-high genotype and neoantigenesis in the major cancer types including bladder cancer, breast cancer, head and neck squamous carcinoma, lung adenocarcinoma, lung squamous cell carcinoma, ovarian cancer, and sarcoma. Tumors with high HRD score bears increased leukocyte infiltration and lymphocyte fraction and demonstrated immune-sensitive microenvironment. The tumor immune dysfunction and exclusion (TIDE) model further confirmed HRD score-high genotype as a potential predictor for ICI immunotherapy responders in breast cancer. In conclusion, tumors with high HRD score exhibit an immune-sensitive TME. The HRD-high genotype is a promising marker for identifying ICI therapy responders among breast cancer patients.