Abstract Successful treatment of lung cancer (NSCLC) patients with ROS1 inhibitors depends on the accurate diagnosis of ROS1 gene rearrangements. The approved FISH tests are low-throughput assays difficult to use in daily diagnostic practice. Immunohistochemistry is currently discussed as screening test. We aimed to devise an alternative, sensitive diagnostic test for the rearrangement of ROS1 and to investigate upregulated ROS1 gene expression as potential target in NSCLC. We developed a qRT-PCR assay adapted to RNA isolated from FFPE material and applied it to 695 NSCLC specimens. The reliability to detect ROS1 rearrangements was evidenced by comparison with FISH and immunohistochemistry. qRT-PCR analysis detected unbalanced ROS1 expression indicative of gene rearrangement in 5 (0.7%) and expression of non-rearranged ROS1 transcripts in 65 (9.6%) of 680 interpretable tumors. In comparison with FISH, qRT-PCR accurately typed 99% of 5 rearranged and 121 non-rearranged tumors. Immunohistochemistry detected ROS1 protein expression in 7/8 tumors with gene fusions and 6/35 NSCLC with transcriptional upregulation. To elucidate RNA processing, 12 NSCLC were examined by systematic RT-PCR and sequence analysis. In all 12 NSCLC analyzed, up-regulated gene expression independent of translocation was associated with aberrant expression of fetal transcript isoforms identified here. We conclude that our qRT-PCR assay reliably diagnoses and distinguishes ROS1 rearrangements and expression of non-rearranged transcripts. Immunostaining is a suitable screening tool, but re-examination of ROS1 protein expressing cases by qRT-PCR/FISH is compulsory. The expression of ROS1 splice isoforms – shown here for the first time - may be relevant for ROS1 inhibitor therapy in NSCLC.
Keywords: ROS1; non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC); routine diagnostics; qRT-PCR; translocation; overexpression; splice isoforms