Abstract
Background: It is well known that the tumor microenvironment (TME) has been received an increasing number of attention. CXC chemokines could regulate immune cell transport and tumor cell activity, thus exerting anti-tumor immunity. However, studies on the expression and prognosis of CXC chemokines in cervical cancer (CC) are more limited. Methods: The study investigated the role of CXC chemokines in the TME and prognosis of CC using public databases. Moreover, quantitative real-time PCR (Q-PCR) and immunohistochemistry (IHC) of CXC chemokines were performed to further verify. Results: The transcriptional levels of CXCL1/3/5/6/8/9/10/11/13/14/16/17 in CC tissues were significantly elevated while the transcriptional levels of CXCL2/4/7/12 were significantly reduced. We reached a consistent conclusion that the expression of CXCL9/10/11/13 was verified by Q-PCR and IHC. Moreover, CC patients with low transcriptional levels of CXCL1/2/3/4/5/8 were signifi-cantly associated with longer overall survival (OS). Our data suggest that RELA, NFKB1, and SP1 are key transcription factors for CXC chemokines, and the LCK, LYN and PAK are CXC chemokine kinases targets. We found significant correlations among the expression of CXC chemokines and the infiltration of six types of immune cells. Conclusions: We performed a comprehensive analysis of CXC chemokines via clinical data and some online tumor database. Our results may provide new idea for the selection of immunotherapeutic targets and prognostic biomarkers for cervical cancer.
Comprehensive analysis of prognostic alternative splicing signature in cervical cancer
