scholarly journals The Landscape and Prognostic Value of Immune Characteristics in Uterine Corpus Endometrial Cancer

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wenli Liu ◽  
Lisha Sun ◽  
Juan Zhang ◽  
Wengang Song ◽  
Mingcheng Li ◽  
...  

In this study, we explored the clinical and immunological characteristics of 575 uterine corpus endometrial carcinoma (UCEC) samples obtained from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) using the ESTIMATE and CIBERSORT algorithms. First, Kaplan–Meier and univariate Cox regression analyses indicated that the immune cell score was a prognostic factor for overall survival (OS) and recurrence-free survival (RFS). Multivariate Cox regression analysis further revealed that the immune cell score was an independent prognostic factor for UCEC patients. Second, we investigated the correlation between the infiltration levels of 22 types of immune cells and the immune score. Survival analysis based on the 22 immune cell types showed that higher levels of regulatory T cell, activated NK cell, and follicular helper T cell infiltration were associated with longer OS, while higher levels of CD8+ T cell and naive B cell infiltration were associated with longer RFS. Next, we performed differential expression and prognosis analyses on 1,534 immune-related genes and selected five from 14 candidate genes to construct a prognostic prediction model. The area under the receiver-operating characteristic (ROC) curve (AUC) for three- and five-year survival were 0.711 and 0.728, respectively. Further validation using a stage I–II subgroup showed similar results, presenting AUC values for three-year and five-year survival of 0.677 and 0.692, respectively. Taken together, this study provides not only a deeper understanding of the relationship between UCEC and the immune landscape but also guidance for the future development of UCEC immunotherapy.

2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Cankun Zhou ◽  
Chaomei Li ◽  
Fangli Yan ◽  
Yuhua Zheng

Abstract Background Uterine corpus endometrial carcinoma (UCEC) is a frequent gynecological malignancy with a poor prognosis particularly at an advanced stage. Herein, this study aims to construct prognostic markers of UCEC based on immune-related genes to predict the prognosis of UCEC. Methods We analyzed expression data of 575 UCEC patients from The Cancer Genome Atlas database and immune genes from the ImmPort database, which were used for generation and validation of the signature. We constructed a transcription factor regulatory network based on Cistrome databases, and also performed functional enrichment and pathway analyses for the differentially expressed immune genes. Moreover, the prognostic value of 410 immune genes was determined using the Cox regression analysis. We then constructed and verified a prognostic signature. Finally, we performed immune infiltration analysis using TIMER-generating immune cell content. Results The immune cell microenvironment as well as the PI3K-Akt, and MARK signaling pathways were involved in UCEC development. The established prognostic signature revealed a ten-gene prognostic signature, comprising of PDIA3, LTA, PSMC4, TNF, SBDS, HDGF, HTR3E, NR3C1, PGR, and CBLC. This signature showed a strong prognostic ability in both the training and testing sets and thus can be used as an independent tool to predict the prognosis of UCEC. In addition, levels of B cells and neutrophils were significantly correlated with the patient’s risk score, while the expression of ten genes was associated with immune cell infiltrates. Conclusions In summary, the ten-gene prognostic signature may guide the selection of the immunotherapy for UCEC.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cankun Zhou ◽  
Chaomei Li ◽  
Fangli Yan ◽  
Yuhua Zheng

Abstract Background: Uterine corpus endometrial carcinoma (UCEC) is a frequent gynecological malignancy with a poor prognosis particularly at an advanced stage. Herein, this study aims to construct prognostic markers of UCEC based on immune-related genes to predict the prognosis of UCEC.Methods: We analyzed expression data of 575 UCEC patients from The Cancer Genome Atlas database and immune genes from the ImmPort database, which were used for generation and validation of the signature. We constructed a transcription factor regulatory network based on Cistrome databases, and also performed functional enrichment and pathway analyses for the differentially expressed immune genes. Moreover, the prognostic value of 410 immune genes was determined using the Cox regression analysis. We then constructed and verified a prognostic signature. Finally, we performed immune infiltration analysis using TIMER-generating immune cell content.Results: The immune cell microenvironment as well as the PI3K-Akt, and MARK signaling pathways were involved in UCEC development. The established prognostic signature revealed a ten-gene prognostic signature, comprising of PDIA3, LTA, PSMC4, TNF, SBDS, HDGF, HTR3E, NR3C1, PGR, and CBLC. This signature showed a strong prognostic ability in both the training and testing sets and thus can be used as an independent tool to predict the prognosis of UCEC. In addition, levels of B cells and neutrophils were significantly correlated with the patient's risk score, while the expression of ten genes was associated with immune cell infiltrates.Conclusions: In summary, the ten-gene prognostic signature may guide the selection of the immunotherapy for UCEC.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Donglei Zhang ◽  
Hang Yin ◽  
Ping Xu ◽  
Xiaozhe Qian

Abstract Background: Esophageal adenocarcinoma (EA) has a poor prognosis and is a typical immunogenic malignant tumor. Abnormal expression of miR-3648 has been reported in EA, but its value in prognosis prediction and immune cell infiltration imbalance mediation is still unknown. We aimed to mine immune-related genes (IRGs) targeted by miR-3648 and construct a multigene signature to improve the prognostic prediction of EA.Methods: The gene expression data of EA tumor or normal tissues from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database and GTEx database were downloaded. Weighted gene coexpression network analysis (WGCNA), the CIBERSORT algorithm and Cox regression analysis were applied to identify IRGs and to construct a prognostic signature and nomogram.Results: miR-3648 was obviously highly expressed in EA tumor tissues and was correlated with patient survival time [hazard ratio (HR) = 1.28, 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.09-1.49, p = 0.002]. A total of 70 miR-3648-targeted genes related to immune cell infiltration were identified, and a novel 4-gene signature (C10orf55, DLL4, PANX2 and NKAIN1) was established. The prognostic signature-based risk score has superior capability to predict overall survival (AUC = 0.740 for 1 year; AUC = 0.717 for 3 years; AUC = 0.622 for 5 years). A higher score was indicative of a poorer prognosis than a lower score (HR = 1.69, 95% CI: 1.08-2.64, p = 0.20, adjusted by TNM stage).Conclusion: miR-3648 might play a crucial role in the progression of EA. The novel miR-3648-targeted immune-related 4-gene signature is expected to become a potential prognostic marker in EA.


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhuomao Mo ◽  
Daiyuan Liu ◽  
Dade Rong ◽  
Shijun Zhang

Background: Generally, hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) exists in an immunosuppressive microenvironment that promotes tumor evasion. Hypoxia can impact intercellular crosstalk in the tumor microenvironment. This study aimed to explore and elucidate the underlying relationship between hypoxia and immunotherapy in patients with HCC.Methods: HCC genomic and clinicopathological datasets were obtained from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA-LIHC), Gene Expression Omnibus databases (GSE14520) and International Cancer Genome Consortium (ICGC-LIRI). The TCGA-LIHC cases were divided into clusters based on single sample gene set enrichment analysis and hierarchical clustering. After identifying patients with immunosuppressive microenvironment with different hypoxic conditions, correlations between immunological characteristics and hypoxia clusters were investigated. Subsequently, a hypoxia-associated score was established by differential expression, univariable Cox regression, and lasso regression analyses. The score was verified by survival and receiver operating characteristic curve analyses. The GSE14520 cohort was used to validate the findings of immune cell infiltration and immune checkpoints expression, while the ICGC-LIRI cohort was employed to verify the hypoxia-associated score.Results: We identified hypoxic patients with immunosuppressive HCC. This cluster exhibited higher immune cell infiltration and immune checkpoint expression in the TCGA cohort, while similar significant differences were observed in the GEO cohort. The hypoxia-associated score was composed of five genes (ephrin A3, dihydropyrimidinase like 4, solute carrier family 2 member 5, stanniocalcin 2, and lysyl oxidase). In both two cohorts, survival analysis revealed significant differences between the high-risk and low-risk groups. In addition, compared to other clinical parameters, the established score had the highest predictive performance at both 3 and 5 years in two cohorts.Conclusion: This study provides further evidence of the link between hypoxic signals in patients and immunosuppression in HCC. Defining hypoxia-associated HCC subtypes may help reveal potential regulatory mechanisms between hypoxia and the immunosuppressive microenvironment, and our hypoxia-associated score could exhibit potential implications for future predictive models.


2020 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 107327482090338
Author(s):  
Fabian Haak ◽  
Isabelle Obrecht ◽  
Nadia Tosti ◽  
Benjamin Weixler ◽  
Robert Mechera ◽  
...  

Objectives: Analysis of tumor immune infiltration has been suggested to outperform tumor, node, metastasis staging in predicting clinical course of colorectal cancer (CRC). Infiltration by cells expressing OX40, a member of the tumor necrosis factor receptor family, or CD16, expressed by natural killer cells, monocytes, and dendritic cells, has been associated with favorable prognosis in patients with CRC. We hypothesized that assessment of CRC infiltration by both OX40+ and CD16+ cells might result in enhanced prognostic significance. Methods: Colorectal cancer infiltration by OX40 and CD16 expressing cells was investigated in 441 primary CRCs using tissue microarrays and specific antibodies, by immunohistochemistry. Patients’ survival was evaluated by Kaplan-Meier and log-rank tests. Multivariate Cox regression analysis, hazard ratios, and 95% confidence intervals were also used to evaluate prognostic significance of OX40+ and CD16+ cell infiltration. Results: Colorectal cancer infiltration by OX40+ and CD16+ cells was subclassified into 4 groups with high or low infiltration levels in all possible combinations. High levels of infiltration by both OX40+ and CD16+ cells were associated with lower pT stage, absence of peritumoral lymphocytic (PTL) inflammation, and a positive prognostic impact. Patients bearing tumors with high infiltration by CD16+ and OX40+ cells were also characterized by significantly longer overall survival, as compared with the other groups. These results were confirmed by analyzing an independent validation cohort. Conclusions: Combined infiltration by OX40+ and CD16+ immune cells is an independent favorable prognostic marker in CRC. The prognostic value of CD16+ immune cell infiltration is significantly improved by the combined analysis with OX40+ cell infiltration.


2021 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mingqin Ge ◽  
Jie Niu ◽  
Ping Hu ◽  
Aihua Tong ◽  
Yan Dai ◽  
...  

Objective: This study aimed to construct a prognostic ferroptosis-related signature for thyroid cancer and probe into the association with tumor immune microenvironment.Methods: Based on the expression profiles of ferroptosis-related genes, a LASSO cox regression model was established for thyroid cancer. Kaplan-Meier survival analysis was presented between high and low risk groups. The predictive performance was assessed by ROC. The predictive independency was validated via multivariate cox regression analysis and stratified analysis. A nomogram was established and verified by calibration curves. The enriched signaling pathways were predicted via GSEA. The association between the signature and immune cell infiltration was analyzed by CIBERSORT. The ferroptosis-related genes were validated in thyroid cancer tissues by immunohistochemistry and RT-qPCR.Results: A ferroptosis-related eight gene model was established for predicting the prognosis of thyroid cancer. Patients with high risk score indicated a poorer prognosis than those with low risk score (p = 1.186e-03). The AUCs for 1-, 2-, and 3-year survival were 0.887, 0.890, and 0.840, respectively. Following adjusting other prognostic factors, the model could independently predict the prognosis (p = 0.015, HR: 1.870, 95%CI: 1.132–3.090). A nomogram combining the signature and age was constructed. The nomogram-predicted probability of 1-, 3-, and 5-year survival approached the actual survival time. Several ferroptosis-related pathways were enriched in the high-risk group. The signature was distinctly associated with the immune cell infiltration. After validation, the eight genes were abnormally expressed between thyroid cancer and control tissues.Conclusion: Our findings established a prognostic ferroptosis-related signature that was associated with the immune microenvironment for thyroid cancer.


BMC Cancer ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Shaokun Wang ◽  
Li Pang ◽  
Zuolong Liu ◽  
Xiangwei Meng

Abstract Background The change of immune cell infiltration essentially influences the process of colorectal cancer development. The infiltration of immune cells can be regulated by a variety of genes. Thus, modeling the immune microenvironment of colorectal cancer by analyzing the genes involved can be more conducive to the in-depth understanding of carcinogenesis and the progression thereof. Methods In this study, the number of stromal and immune cells in malignant tumor tissues were first estimated by using expression data (ESTIMATE) and cell-type identification with relative subsets of known RNA transcripts (CIBERSORT) to calculate the proportion of infiltrating immune cell and stromal components of colon cancer samples from the Cancer Genome Atlas database. Then the relationship between the TMN Classification and prognosis of malignant tumors was evaluated. Results By investigating differentially expressed genes using COX regression and protein-protein interaction network (PPI), the candidate hub gene serine protease inhibitor family E member 1 (SERPINE1) was found to be associated with immune cell infiltration. Gene Set Enrichment Analysis (GSEA) further projected the potential pathways with elevated SERPINE1 expression to carcinogenesis and immunity. CIBERSORT was subsequently utilized to investigate the relationship between the expression differences of SERPINE1 and immune cell infiltration and to identify eight immune cells associated with SERPINE1 expression. Conclusion We found that SERPINE1 plays a role in the remodeling of the colon cancer microenvironment and the infiltration of immune cells.


2021 ◽  
Vol 10 ◽  
Author(s):  
Liang Zhao ◽  
Jiayue Zhang ◽  
Zhiyuan Liu ◽  
Yu Wang ◽  
Shurui Xuan ◽  
...  

Alternative splicing (AS) of pre-mRNA has been widely reported to be associated with the progression of malignant tumors. However, a systematic investigation into the prognostic value of AS events in glioblastoma (GBM) is urgently required. The gene expression profile and matched AS events data of GBM patients were obtained from The Cancer Genome Atlas Project (TCGA) and TCGA SpliceSeq database, respectively. 775 AS events were identified as prognostic factors using univariate Cox regression analysis. The least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) cox model was performed to narrow down candidate AS events, and a risk score model based on several AS events were developed subsequently. The risk score-based signature was proved as an efficient predictor of overall survival and was closely related to the tumor purity and immunosuppression in GBM. Combined similarity network fusion and consensus clustering (SNF-CC) analysis revealed two distinct GBM subtypes based on the prognostic AS events, and the associations between this novel molecular classification and clinicopathological factors, immune cell infiltration, as well as immunogenic features were further explored. We also constructed a regulatory network to depict the potential mechanisms that how prognostic splicing factors (SFs) regulate splicing patterns in GBM. Finally, a nomogram incorporating AS events signature and other clinical-relevant covariates was built for clinical application. This comprehensive analysis highlights the potential implications for predicting prognosis and clinical management in GBM.


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mengyu Sun ◽  
Tongyue Zhang ◽  
Yijun Wang ◽  
Wenjie Huang ◽  
Limin Xia

Colorectal cancer (CRC) has the characteristics of high morbidity and mortality. LncRNA not only participates in the progression of CRC through genes and transcription levels, but also regulates the tumor microenvironment and leads to the malignant phenotype of tumors. Therefore, we identified immune-related LncRNAs for the construction of clinical prognostic model. We searched The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database for original data. Then we identified differentially expressed irlncRNA (DEirlncRNA), which was paired and verified subsequently. Next, univariate analysis, Lasso and Cox regression analysis were performed on the DEirlncRNA pair. The ROC curve of the signature was drawn, and the optimal cut-off value was found. Then the cohort was divided into a high-risk and a low-risk group. Finally, we re-evaluated the signature from different perspectives. A total of 16 pairs of DEirlncRNA were included in the construction of the model. After regrouping according to the cut-off value of 1.275, the high-risk group showed adverse survival outcomes, progressive clinicopathological features, specific immune cell infiltration status, and high sensitivity to some chemotherapy drugs. In conclusion, we constructed a signature composed of immune-related LncRNA pair with no requirement of the specific expression level of genes, which shows promising clinical predictive value in CRC patients.


2021 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 169-190
Author(s):  
Peiyuan Li ◽  
◽  
Gangjie Qiao ◽  
Jian Lu ◽  
Wenbin Ji ◽  
...  

<abstract> <p>Plasmacytoma variant translocation 1 (PVT1) is involved in multiple signaling pathways and plays an important regulatory role in a variety of malignant tumors. However, its role in the prognosis and immune invasion of bladder urothelial carcinoma (BLCA) remains unclear. This study investigated the expression of PVT1 in tumor tissue and its relationship with immune invasion, and determined its prognostic role in patients with BLCA. Patients were identified from the cancer genome atlas (TCGA). The enrichment pathway and function of PVT1 were explained by gene ontology (GO) term analysis, gene set enrichment analysis (GSEA) and single-sample gene set enrichment analysis (ssGSEA), and the degree of immune cell infiltration was quantified. Kaplan–Meier analysis and Cox regression were used to analyze the correlation between PVT1 and survival rate. PVT1-high BLCA patients had a lower 10-year disease-specific survival (DSS P &lt; 0.05) and overall survival (OS P &lt; 0.05). Multivariate Cox regression analysis showed that PVT1 (high vs. low) (P = 0.004) was an independent prognostic factor. A nomogram was used to predict the effect of PVT1 on the prognosis. PVT1 plays an important role in the progression and prognosis of BLCA and can be used as a medium biomarker to predict survival after cystectomy.</p> </abstract>


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