Constructing Tumor Immune Microenvironment and Identifying the Immune-Related Prognostic Signatures in Colorectal Cancer Using Multi-omics Data

ABSTRACTBackgroundThe tumor immune microenvironment (TIME) plays a key role in occurrence, progression and prognosis of colorectal cancer (CRC). However, the genetic and epigenetic alterations and potential mechanisms in the TIME of CRC are still unclear.MethodsWe investigated the immune-related differences in three types of genetic or epigenetic alterations (gene expression, somatic mutation, and DNA methylation) and considered the potential roles that these alterations have in the immune response and the immune-related biological processes by analyzing the multi-omics data from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) portal. Additionally, a four-step method based on LASSO regression and Cox regression was used to construct the prognostic prediction model. Cross validation was performed to validate the model.ResultsA total of 1,745 differentially expressed genes, 178 differentially mutated genes and 1,961 differentially methylation probes were identified between the high-immunity group and the low-immunity group. We retained 15 genetic and epigenetic variables after using LASSO regression and Cox regression. For the prognostic predictions on the TCGA profiles, the performance of the model with 1-year, 3-year, and 5-year areas under the curve (AUCs) equal to 0.861, 0.797, and 0.875. Finally, the overall risk score model was constructed based on genetic, epigenetic, demographic and clinical characteristics, which comprised 18 variables and achieved a high degree of accuracy on the 1-year (AUC = 0.865), 3-year (AUC = 0.839), and 5-year (AUC = 0.914) survival predictions. Kaplan-Meier survival analysis demonstrated that the overall survival of the high-risk group was significantly poorer compared with the low-risk group. Prognostic nomogram, calibration plot and cross validation showed excellent predictive performance.ConclusionsOur study provides a new clue to explore the TIME of CRC patients in genetic and epigenetic aspects. Meanwhile, the prognostic model also has clinical prognostic value and may provide new indicators for the treatment of CRC patients.

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Exploring the Pyroptosis-related Genes of Breast Cancer and their Effects on Tumor Immune Microenvironment

10.21203/rs.3.rs-1049643/v1 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Congli Jia ◽

Fu Yang ◽

Ruining Li

Keyword(s):

Breast Cancer ◽

High Risk ◽

Prognostic Model ◽

Cox Regression ◽

Risk Group ◽

High Risk Group ◽

Gene Set Enrichment Analysis ◽

The Cancer Genome Atlas ◽

Immune Microenvironment ◽

Tumor Immune Microenvironment

Abstract Background: Breast cancer （BC） is the most common cancer among women, with high rates of metastasis and recurrence. Some studies have confirmed that pyroptosis is an immune-related programmed cell death. However, the correlation between the expression of pyroptosis-related genes in BC and its prognosis remains unclear. Methods: In this study, we identified 38 pyroptosis-related genes that were differentially expressed between BC and normal tissues. The prognostic value of each pyroptosis-related gene was evaluated using patient data from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA). The Cox regression method was performed to establish a prognostic model for 16-gene signature, classifying all BC patients in the TCGA database into a low-or high-risk group. Results: The survival rate of BC patients in the high-risk group was significantly lower than that in the low-risk group (P＜0.01). Prognostic model is independent prognostic factor for BC patients compared to clinical features. Single sample gene set enrichment analysis (ssGSEA) showed a decrease for immune cells and immune function in the high-risk group. Conclusions: Pyroptosis-related genes influence the tumor immune microenvironment and can predict the prognosis of BC.

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Analysis of m6A-Related Signatures in the Tumor Immune Microenvironment and Identification of Clinical Prognostic Regulators in Adrenocortical Carcinoma

Frontiers in Immunology ◽

10.3389/fimmu.2021.637933 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 12 ◽

Author(s):

Yi Jin ◽

Zhanwang Wang ◽

Dong He ◽

Yuxing Zhu ◽

Xueying Hu ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Adrenocortical Carcinoma ◽

Molecular Mechanisms ◽

Potential Role ◽

Cox Regression ◽

Risk Group ◽

Gene Set Enrichment Analysis ◽

The Cancer Genome Atlas ◽

Immune Microenvironment ◽

Tumor Immune Microenvironment

Adrenocortical carcinoma (ACC) is a rare endocrine malignancy with a high rate of mortality and recurrence. N6-methyladenosine methylation (m6A) is the most common modification to affect cancer development, but to date, the potential role of m6A regulators in ACC prognosis is not well understood. In this study, we systematically analyzed 21 m6A regulators in ACC samples from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) database. We identified three m6A modification patterns with different clinical outcomes and discovered a significant relationship between diverse m6A clusters and the tumor immune microenvironment (immune cell types and ESTIMATE algorithm). Additionally, Gene Ontology (GO), Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG), and Gene Set Enrichment Analysis (GSEA) revealed that the m6A clusters were strongly associated with immune infiltration in the ACC. Next, to further explore the m6A prognostic signatures in ACC, we implemented Lasso (Least Absolute Shrinkage and Selection Operator) Cox regression to establish an eight-m6A-regulator prognostic model in the TCGA dataset, and the results showed that the model-based high-risk group was closely correlated with poor overall survival (OS) compared with the low-risk group. Subsequently, we validated the key modifications in the GEO datasets and found that high HNRNPA2B1 expression resulted in poor OS and event-free survival (EFS) in ACC. Moreover, to further decipher the molecular mechanisms, we constructed a competing endogenous RNA (ceRNA) network based on HNRNPA2B1, which consists of 12 long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) and 1 microRNA (miRNA). In conclusion, our findings indicate the potential role of m6A modification in ACC, providing novel insights into ACC prognosis and guiding effective immunotherapy.

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N6-Methylandenosine-Related lncRNA Signature Is a Novel Biomarkers of Prognosis and Immune Response in Colon Adenocarcinoma Patients

Frontiers in Cell and Developmental Biology ◽

10.3389/fcell.2021.703629 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 9 ◽

Author(s):

Peiling Zhang ◽

Guolong Liu ◽

Lin Lu

Keyword(s):

Clustering Analysis ◽

Risk Model ◽

Cox Regression ◽

Risk Group ◽

Colon Adenocarcinoma ◽

The Cancer Genome Atlas ◽

Immune Microenvironment ◽

Data Set ◽

Survival Status ◽

Tumor Immune Microenvironment

BackgroundColon adenocarcinoma (COAD) is the most common type of colon cancer. To date, however, the prognostic values of m6A RNA methylation-related long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) in COAD are largely unknown.Materials and MethodsThe m6A-related lncRNAs were identified from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) data set. Univariate and multivariate Cox regression analyses were performed to explore the prognostic m6A-related lncRNAs. Consistent clustering analysis was performed to classify the COAD patients into different subgroups based on the expression of m6A-related lncRNAs. The potential biological functions as well as differences in the stemness index and tumor immune microenvironment between different subgroups were analyzed. The prognostic m6A-related lncRNAs were used to establish an m6A-related lncRNA risk model to predict prognosis and survival status.ResultsWe identified 31 m6A-associated lncRNAs with prognostic values from the TCGA data set. Based on the expression of prognostic m6A-associated lncRNAs, TCGA-COAD patients were classified into three clusters using consistent clustering analysis. There was a low correlation of tumor stemness between the three clusters but a significant correlation with the tumor immune microenvironment as well as the tumor mutational load. Thirty-one prognostic-related m6A-associated lncRNAs were used to construct a risk model, which was further determined by survival analysis, receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve, and univariate and multifactor Cox analysis. The m6A-related risk model demonstrates good performance in predicting prognosis and survival status. The model-based high-risk group exhibited poorer overall survival (OS) compared with the low-risk group.ConclusionIn this study, we construct a risk model that consists of 31 m6A-related lncRNAs with independent prognostic values in COAD. Our study shows the critical roles of these 31 m6A-related lncRNAs in the tumor immune microenvironment, indicating the prospect of informing prognostic stratification and the development of immunotherapeutic strategies for COAD patients.

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Identification of the angiogenesis related genes for predicting prognosis of patients with gastric cancer

BMC Gastroenterology ◽

10.1186/s12876-021-01734-4 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 21 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Sheng Zheng ◽

Zizhen Zhang ◽

Ning Ding ◽

Jiawei Sun ◽

Yifeng Lin ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Gastric Cancer ◽

Overall Survival ◽

High Efficiency ◽

Cox Regression ◽

Risk Group ◽

The Cancer Genome Atlas ◽

Differentially Expressed ◽

Lasso Regression ◽

Sequencing Data ◽

Cox Regression Analysis

Abstract Introduction Angiogenesis is a key factor in promoting tumor growth, invasion and metastasis. In this study we aimed to investigate the prognostic value of angiogenesis-related genes (ARGs) in gastric cancer (GC). Methods mRNA sequencing data with clinical information of GC were downloaded from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) databases. The differentially expressed ARGs between normal and tumor tissues were analyzed by limma package, and then prognosis‑associated genes were screened using Cox regression analysis. Nine angiogenesis genes were identified as crucially related to the overall survival (OS) of patients through least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) regression. The prognostic model and corresponding nomograms were establish based on 9 ARGs and verified in in both TCGA and GEO GC cohorts respectively. Results Eighty-five differentially expressed ARGs and their enriched pathways were confirmed. Significant enrichment analysis revealed that ARGs-related signaling pathway genes were highly related to tumor angiogenesis development. Kaplan–Meier analysis revealed that patients in the high-risk group had worse OS rates compared with the low-risk group in training cohort and validation cohort. In addition, RS had a good prognostic effect on GC patients with different clinical features, especially those with advanced GC. Besides, the calibration curves verified fine concordance between the nomogram prediction model and actual observation. Conclusions We developed a nine gene signature related to the angiogenesis that can predict overall survival for GC. It’s assumed to be a valuable prognosis model with high efficiency, providing new perspectives in targeted therapy.

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Immune Characteristics-Related Typing of Colorectal Cancer and the Establishment of 14-Gene Prognostic Model

10.21203/rs.3.rs-1093264/v1 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Jianxing Ma ◽

Chen Wang

Keyword(s):

Colorectal Cancer ◽

Risk Model ◽

Cox Regression ◽

Nonnegative Matrix ◽

Test Group ◽

Progression Free Survival ◽

Risk Groups ◽

The Cancer Genome Atlas ◽

Lasso Regression ◽

Immune Related Genes

Abstract This study is to establish NMF (nonnegative matrix factorization) typing related to the tumor microenvironment (TME) of colorectal cancer (CRC) and to construct a gene model related to prognosis to be able to more accurately estimate the prognosis of CRC patients. NMF algorithm was used to classify samples merged clinical data of differentially expressed genes (DEGs) of TCGA that are related to the TME shared in The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) datasets, and survival differences between subtype groups were compared. By using createData Partition command, TCGA database samples were randomly divided into train group and test group. Then the univariate Cox analysis, Lasso regression and multivariate Cox regression models were used to obtain risk model formula, which is used to score the samples in the train group, test group and GEO database, and to divide the samples of each group into high-risk and low-risk groups, according to the median score of the train group. After that, the model was validated. Patients with CRC were divided into 2, 3, 5 subtypes respectively. The comparison of patients with overall survival (OS) and progression-free survival (PFS) showed that the method of typing with the rank set to 5 was the most statistically significant (p=0.007, p<0.001, respectively). Moreover, the model constructed containing 14 immune-related genes (PPARGC1A, CXCL11, PCOLCE2, GABRD, TRAF5, FOXD1, NXPH4, ALPK3, KCNJ11, NPR1, F2RL2, CD36, CCNF, DUSP14) can be used as an independent prognostic factor, which is superior to some previous models in terms of patient prognosis. The 5-type typing of CRC patients and the 14 immune-related genes model constructed by us can accurately estimate the prognosis of patients with CRC.

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RNA N6-Methyladenosine Regulators Contribute to Tumor Immune Microenvironment and Have Clinical Prognostic Impact in Breast Cancer

Frontiers in Genetics ◽

10.3389/fgene.2021.650499 ◽

2022 ◽

Vol 12 ◽

Author(s):

Lan-Xin Mu ◽

You-Cheng Shao ◽

Lei Wei ◽

Fang-Fang Chen ◽

Jing-Wei Zhang

Keyword(s):

Breast Cancer ◽

Immune Cell ◽

Risk Model ◽

Cox Regression ◽

Gene Set Enrichment Analysis ◽

The Cancer Genome Atlas ◽

Prognostic Impact ◽

Immune Microenvironment ◽

Model Based ◽

Tumor Immune Microenvironment

Purpose: This study aims to reveal the relationship between RNA N6-methyladenosine (m6A) regulators and tumor immune microenvironment (TME) in breast cancer, and to establish a risk model for predicting the occurrence and development of tumors.Patients and methods: In the present study, we respectively downloaded the transcriptome dataset of breast cancer from Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) database and The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database to analyze the mutation characteristics of m6A regulators and their expression profile in different clinicopathological groups. Then we used the weighted correlation network analysis (WGCNA), the least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO), and cox regression to construct a risk prediction model based on m6A-associated hub genes. In addition, Immune infiltration analysis and gene set enrichment analysis (GSEA) was used to evaluate the immune cell context and the enriched gene sets among the subgroups.Results: Compared with adjacent normal tissue, differentially expressed 24 m6A regulators were identified in breast cancer. According to the expression features of m6A regulators above, we established two subgroups of breast cancer, which were also surprisingly distinguished by the feature of the immune microenvironment. The Model based on modification patterns of m6A regulators could predict the patient’s T stage and evaluate their prognosis. Besides, the low m6aRiskscore group presents an immune-activated phenotype as well as a lower tumor mutation load, and its 5-years survival rate was 90.5%, while that of the high m6ariskscore group was only 74.1%. Finally, the cohort confirmed that age (p < 0.001) and m6aRiskscore (p < 0.001) are both risk factors for breast cancer in the multivariate regression.Conclusion: The m6A regulators play an important role in the regulation of breast tumor immune microenvironment and is helpful to provide guidance for clinical immunotherapy.

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Prognostic Modeling of Patients with Metastatic Melanoma Based on Tumor Immune Microenvironment Characteristics

10.21203/rs.3.rs-730205/v1 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Jing Liu ◽

Ting Ye ◽

Xue fang Zhang ◽

Yong jian Dong ◽

Wen feng Zhang ◽

...

Keyword(s):

High Risk ◽

Metastatic Melanoma ◽

Prognostic Model ◽

Cox Regression ◽

Risk Group ◽

Low Risk ◽

Risk Scores ◽

Immune Microenvironment ◽

Immune Infiltration ◽

Tumor Immune Microenvironment

Abstract Most of the malignant melanomas are already in the middle and advanced stages when they are diagnosed, which is often accompanied by the metastasis and spread of other organs.Besides, the prognosis of patients is bleak. The characteristics of the local immune microenvironment in metastatic melanoma have important implications for both tumor progression and tumor treatment. In this study, data on patients with metastatic melanoma from the TCGA and GEO datasets were selected for immune, stromal, and estimate scores, and overlapping differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were screened. A nine-IRGs prognostic model (ALOX5AP, ARHGAP15, CCL8, FCER1G, GBP4, HCK, MMP9, RARRES2 and TRIM22) was established by univariate COX regression, LASSO and multivariate COX regression. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves were used to test the predictive accuracy of the model. Immune infiltration was analyzed by using CIBERSORT, Xcell and ssGSEA in high-risk and low-risk groups. The immune infiltration of the high-risk group was significantly lower than that of the low-risk group. Immune checkpoint analysis revealed that the expression of PDCD1, CTLA4, TIGIT, CD274, HAVR2 and LAG3 were significantly different in groups with different levels of risk scores. WGCNA analysis found that the yellow-green module contained seven genes (ALOX5AP, FCER1G, GBP4, HCK, MMP9, RARRES2 and TRIM22) from the nine-IRG prognostic model, of which the yellow-green module had the highest correlation with risk scores. The results of GO and KEGG suggested that the genes in the yellow-green module were mainly enriched in immune-related biological processes. Finally, we analyzed the prognostic ability and expression characteristics of ALOX5AP, ARHGAP15, CCL8, FCER1G, GBP4, HCK, MMP9, RARRES2 and TRIM22 in metastatic melanoma. Overall, a prognostic model for metastatic melanoma based on the characteristics of the tumor immune microenvironment was established, which was helpful for further studies.It could function well in helping people to understand the characteristics of the immune microenvironment in metastatic melanoma and to find possible therapeutic targets.

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Identification and validation of prognostic signature for breast cancer based on genes potentially involved in autophagy

PeerJ ◽

10.7717/peerj.9621 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 8 ◽

pp. e9621

Author(s):

Shanliang Zhong ◽

Huanwen Chen ◽

Sujin Yang ◽

Jifeng Feng ◽

Siying Zhou

Keyword(s):

Breast Cancer ◽

Cancer Survival ◽

Cox Regression ◽

Risk Group ◽

Breast Cancer Survival ◽

Low Risk ◽

The Cancer Genome Atlas ◽

Lasso Regression ◽

Breast Cancer Patients ◽

Prognostic Signature

We aimed to identify prognostic signature based on autophagy-related genes (ARGs) for breast cancer patients. The datasets of breast cancer were downloaded from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO). Least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) Cox regression was conducted to construct multiple-ARG risk signature. In total, 32 ARGs were identified as differentially expressed between tumors and adjacent normal tissues based on TCGA. Six ARGs (IFNG, TP63, PPP1R15A, PTK6, EIF4EBP1 and NKX2-3) with non-zero coefficient were selected from the 32 ARGs using LASSO regression. The 6-ARG signature divided patients into high-and low-risk group. Survival analysis indicated that low-risk group had longer survival time than high-risk group. We further validated the 6-ARG signature using dataset from GEO and found similar results. We analyzed the associations between ARGs and breast cancer survival in TCGA and nine GEO datasets, and obtained 170 ARGs with significant associations. EIF4EBP1, FOS and FAS were the top three ARGs with highest numbers of significant associations. EIF4EBP1 may be a key ARG which had a higher expression level in patients with more malignant molecular subtypes and higher grade breast cancer. In conclusion, our 6-ARG signature was of significance in predicting of overall survival of patients with breast cancer. EIF4EBP1 may be a key ARG associated with breast cancer survival.

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A Novel Signature Constructed by Immune-Related LncRNA Predicts the Immune Landscape of Colorectal Cancer

Frontiers in Genetics ◽

10.3389/fgene.2021.695130 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 12 ◽

Author(s):

Mengyu Sun ◽

Tongyue Zhang ◽

Yijun Wang ◽

Wenjie Huang ◽

Limin Xia

Keyword(s):

Colorectal Cancer ◽

High Risk ◽

Immune Cell ◽

Cox Regression ◽

Risk Group ◽

Univariate Analysis ◽

The Cancer Genome Atlas ◽

High Morbidity ◽

Cox Regression Analysis ◽

Chemotherapy Drugs

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.

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Development of Prognostic Indicator Based on Autophagy-Related lncRNA Analysis in Colon Adenocarcinoma

BioMed Research International ◽

10.1155/2020/9807918 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 2020 ◽

pp. 1-14

Author(s):

Weige Zhou ◽

Shijing Zhang ◽

Hui-biao Li ◽

Zheyou Cai ◽

Shuting Tang ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Risk Score ◽

Noncoding Rna ◽

Cox Regression ◽

Risk Group ◽

Expression Profiles ◽

Colon Adenocarcinoma ◽

High Risk Group ◽

The Cancer Genome Atlas ◽

Functional Enrichment ◽

Lasso Regression

There were no systematic researches about autophagy-related long noncoding RNA (lncRNA) signatures to predict the survival of patients with colon adenocarcinoma. It was necessary to set up corresponding autophagy-related lncRNA signatures. The expression profiles of lncRNAs which contained 480 colon adenocarcinoma samples were obtained from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database. The coexpression network of lncRNAs and autophagy-related genes was utilized to select autophagy-related lncRNAs. The lncRNAs were further screened using univariate Cox regression. In addition, Lasso regression and multivariate Cox regression were used to develop an autophagy-related lncRNA signature. A risk score based on the signature was established, and Cox regression was used to test whether it was an independent prognostic factor. The functional enrichment of autophagy-related lncRNAs was visualized using Gene Ontology and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes. Ten prognostic autophagy-related lncRNAs (AC027307.2, AC068580.3, AL138756.1, CD27-AS1, EIF3J-DT, LINC01011, LINC01063, LINC02381, AC073896.3, and SNHG16) were identified to be significantly different, which made up an autophagy-related lncRNA signature. The signature divided patients with colon adenocarcinoma into the low-risk group and the high-risk group. A risk score based on the signature was a significantly independent factor for the patients with colon adenocarcinoma (HR=1.088, 95%CI=1.057−1.120; P<0.001). Additionally, the ten lncRNAs were significantly enriched in autophagy process, metabolism, and tumor classical pathways. In conclusion, the ten autophagy-related lncRNAs and their signature might be molecular biomarkers and therapeutic targets for the patients with colon adenocarcinoma.

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