YAP1 defines an emergent, plastic population of relapsed small cell lung cancer

Small cell lung cancer (SCLC) is an aggressive neuroendocrine malignancy characterized by rapid onset of chemoresistance and poor clinical outcomes. Transcriptional heterogeneity among treatment-naïve SCLC tumors underlies four transcriptional subtypes, each with distinct clinical vulnerabilities. Though previously hypothesized to delineate a distinct subtype, expression of YAP1 is largely absent from treatment-naïve, pure SCLC. To characterize relapsed SCLC, circulating tumor DNA, circulating tumor cells, and core needle biopsies from SCLC patients and preclinical models following resistance to standard-of-care therapies were analyzed. In contrast to treatment-naïve SCLC, these analyses reveal an emergent YAP1-positive cell population that coincides with treatment resistance. These YAP1-positive cells exhibit characteristics of drug tolerant persister cells, including senescence, stemness, and plasticity, as YAP1 positive cells largely abandon features characteristic of SCLC to adopt those of large-cell neuroendocrine carcinoma (LCNEC). As a result of this SCLC-like to LCNEC-like evolution, YAP1-positive cells lack several clinically relevant SCLC surface targets (i.e., DLL3, SEZ6), but are enriched for others (i.e., B7-H3, TROP2). We propose a model where YAP1 expressing cells emerge with SCLC treatment resistance and characterize a tenacious subpopulation capable of diverging from the treatment naïve lineage and adopting features to evade therapeutic response.