scholarly journals As a Newly-Discovered Component in Tumor Microenvironment RUFY4 Participates in Regulation of T cell via Cytokine-Interaction and Predicts Prognosis and Immunotherapy Responsiveness of Clear Cell Renal Carcinoma Patients

Author(s):  
Daojia Miao ◽  
Jian Shi ◽  
Zhiyong Xiong ◽  
Changfei Yuan ◽  
Wen Xiao ◽  
...  

Abstract Background: clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC) is one of the most lethal kinds of malignancies in urinary system and the existing immunotherapy have not achieved satisfactory outcomes. Therefore, this study aims to establish a brand-new gene signature for immune-infiltration and clinical outcome (overall survival and immunotherapy responsiveness) of patients with ccRCC. Methods: Based on RNA sequencing data and clinical information in the Cancer Genome Atlas Project (TCGA) database, we investigated proportions of immune cells in 611 samples by an online tool CIBERSORTx. Multivariate survival analysis was used to determine crucial survival-associated immune cells and immune-infiltration-related genes (IIRGs). Next ROC analysis was carried on to evaluate the ability of IIRGs to distinguish patients and functional enrichment analysis were implemented to explore potential interaction network between immune cells and IIRGs. Results: T cells follicular helper (TFHs) and T cells regulatory (Tregs) were highly infiltrated in the tumor microenvironment and their abundance ratios were independent prognostic factors for overall survival. Among IIRGs of TFHs and TREGs, RUFY4 was found to be highly activated in tumor microenvironment and its co-expression network was enriched in regulation of T cells via cytokine-cytokine receptor interactions.Conclusion: These two cells and RUFY4, considered prognostic biomarkers and immunotherapeutic predictors of ccRCC patients, might also simultaneously affect the regulatory network in tumor microenvironment (TME) through cytokine interactions.

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yi Wang ◽  
Yinhao Chen ◽  
Bingye Zhu ◽  
Limin Ma ◽  
Qianwei Xing

Background: This study was designed to establish a sensitive prognostic model based on apoptosis-related genes to predict overall survival (OS) in patients with clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC).Methods: Obtaining the expression of apoptosis-related genes and associated clinical parameters from online datasets (The Cancer Genome Atlas, TCGA), their biological function analyses were performed through differently expressed genes. By means of LASSO, unadjusted and adjusted Cox regression analyses, this predictive signature was constructed and validated by internal and external databases (both TCGA and ArrayExpress).Results: A total of nine apoptosis-related genes (SLC27A2, TNFAIP2, IFI44, CSF2, IL4, MDK, DOCK8, WNT5A, APP) were ultimately screened as associated hub genes and utilized to construct a prognosis model. Then our constructed riskScore model significantly passed the validation in both the internal and external datasets of OS (all p < 0.05) and verified their expressions by qRT-PCR. Moreover, we conducted the Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC), finding the area under the ROC curves (AUCs) were all above 0.70 which indicated that riskScore was a stable independent prognostic factor (p < 0.05). Furthermore, prognostic nomograms were established to figure out the relationship between 1-, 3- and 5-year OS and individual parameters for ccRCC patients. Additionally, survival analyses indicated that our riskScore worked well in predicting OS in subgroups of age, gender, grade, stage, T, M, N0, White (all p < 0.05), except for African, Asian and N1 (p > 0.05). We also explored its association with immune infiltration and applied cMap database to seek out highly correlated small molecule drugs.Conclusion: Our study successfully constructed a prognostic model containing nine hub apoptosis-related genes for ccRCC, helping clinicians predict patients’ OS and making the prognostic assessment more standardized. Future prospective studies are required to validate our findings.


BMC Cancer ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Qianwei Xing ◽  
Tengyue Zeng ◽  
Shouyong Liu ◽  
Hong Cheng ◽  
Limin Ma ◽  
...  

Abstract Background The role of glycolysis in tumorigenesis has received increasing attention and multiple glycolysis-related genes (GRGs) have been proven to be associated with tumor metastasis. Hence, we aimed to construct a prognostic signature based on GRGs for clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC) and to explore its relationships with immune infiltration. Methods Clinical information and RNA-sequencing data of ccRCC were obtained from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and ArrayExpress datasets. Key GRGs were finally selected through univariate COX, LASSO and multivariate COX regression analyses. External and internal verifications were further carried out to verify our established signature. Results Finally, 10 GRGs including ANKZF1, CD44, CHST6, HS6ST2, IDUA, KIF20A, NDST3, PLOD2, VCAN, FBP1 were selected out and utilized to establish a novel signature. Compared with the low-risk group, ccRCC patients in high-risk groups showed a lower overall survival (OS) rate (P = 5.548Ee-13) and its AUCs based on our established signature were all above 0.70. Univariate/multivariate Cox regression analyses further proved that this signature could serve as an independent prognostic factor (all P < 0.05). Moreover, prognostic nomograms were also created to find out the associations between the established signature, clinical factors and OS for ccRCC in both the TCGA and ArrayExpress cohorts. All results remained consistent after external and internal verification. Besides, nine out of 21 tumor-infiltrating immune cells (TIICs) were highly related to high- and low- risk ccRCC patients stratified by our established signature. Conclusions A novel signature based on 10 prognostic GRGs was successfully established and verified externally and internally for predicting OS of ccRCC, helping clinicians better and more intuitively predict patients’ survival.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rongjiong Zheng ◽  
Yaosen SHao ◽  
Mingming Wang ◽  
Yeli Tang ◽  
Meiling Hu

Abstract BackgroundTumor microenvironment has been implicated in the development and progression of cancers. However, the prognostic significance of tumor microenvironment-related genes in kidney renal clear cell carcinoma (KIRC) remains unclear. MethodsIn this study, we obtained and analyzed gene expression profiles from The Cancer Genome Atlas database. Stromal and immune scores were calculated based on the ESTIMATE algorithm. ResultsIn the discovery series of 537 patients, we identified a list of differentially expressed genes which was significantly associated with prognosis in KIRC patients. Protein-protein interaction networks and functional enrichment analysis were both performed, indicating that these identified genes were related to the immune response. ConclusionsThe tumor microenvironment-related genes could serve as the potential biomarkers for KIRC.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yi Zhang ◽  
Xiaoliang Hua ◽  
Haoqiang Shi ◽  
Li Zhang ◽  
HaiBing Xiao ◽  
...  

Abstract Background: Eukaryotic initiation factor 3a, EIF3A, as a “reader” protein for RNA methylation, has been found to be related to promote tumorigenesis in different variety of cancers. The impaction of EIF3A in clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC) has yet to be expounded. This study aimed to identify the prognostic value of EIF3A in ccRCC and investigate the relationship between expression and immune infiltration.Methods: We collected 29 m6a related mRNA data and clinicopathological parameters from Cancer Genmoe Atlas (TCGA) database. Logistic regression analyses were used to analyze the correlation between EIF3A expression and clinical characteristics. Immunohistochemistry (IHC) were applied to examine EIF3A levels in normal and ccRCC tissues. Univariate and multivariate analyses were conducted to recognize forcefully independent factor in associated with overall survival (OS) and diseases free survival (DFS). Nomogram was aim at predicting the 1-, 3-and 5-year survival probabilities. Gene set enrichment analysis (GSEA) was carried out to the potential function and related signaling pathways of EIF3A expression. To investigate EIF3A of co-expressed genes, we used LinkedOmics and its result was undertaken enrichment analysis. Simultaneously, to employ LinkedOmics and STRING dataset drew a conclusion that EIF3A co-expressed genes and visualized via Cytoscape. Finally, we evaluated that EIF3A expression correlated between with infiltration of immune cells and the expression of marker genes in ccRCC by Tumor Immune Estimation Resource (TIMER) and Gene Expression Profiling Interactive Analysis (GEPIA).Result: EIF3A expression was significantly different between ccRCC tissues and normal tissues. EIF3A expression was connected with poor prognostic clinicopathological factors, and K–M analyses revealed that low EIF3A expression was correlated with poor prognosis. The result of univariate and multivariate analyses proved that EIF3A was a prognostic factor in ccRCC patients. GSEA results indicated that high expression was enriched in renal cell carcinoma pathway and so on. EIF3A expression was significantly positively correlated with B cells, CD8+T cells, CD4+T cells, neutrophils, macrophages, and dendritic cells. Furthermore, EIF3A expression was associated with most of marker genes of immune cells.Conclusions: EIF3A could serve as potential biomarkers for prognostic and diagnostic stratification factor for ccRCC and is related with immune cells infiltrates.


2019 ◽  
Vol 2019 ◽  
pp. 1-12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhenfeng Deng ◽  
Jilong Wang ◽  
Banghao Xu ◽  
Zongrui Jin ◽  
Guolin Wu ◽  
...  

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the most common and lethal malignancies. Recent studies reveal that tumor microenvironment (TME) components significantly affect HCC growth and progression, particularly the infiltrating stromal and immune cells. Thus, mining of TME-related biomarkers is crucial to improve the survival of patients with HCC. Public access of The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database allows convenient performance of gene expression-based analysis of big data, which contributes to the exploration of potential association between genes and prognosis of a variety of malignancies, including HCC. The “Estimation of STromal and Immune cells in MAlignant Tumors using Expression data” algorithm renders the quantification of the stromal and immune components in TME possible by calculating the stromal and immune scores. Differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were screened by dividing the HCC cohort of TCGA database into high- and low-score groups according to stromal and immune scores. Further analyses of functional enrichment and protein-protein interaction networks show that the DEGs are mainly involved in immune response, cell adhesion, and extracellular matrix. Finally, seven DEGs have significant association with HCC poor outcomes. These genes contain FABP3, GALNT5, GPR84, ITGB6, MYEOV, PLEKHS1, and STRA6 and may be candidate biomarkers for HCC prognosis.


2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 ◽  
pp. 1-37
Author(s):  
Zedan Zhang ◽  
Yanlin Tang ◽  
Yanjun Liu ◽  
Hongkai Zhuang ◽  
Enyu Lin ◽  
...  

Background. Clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC) is the most common subtype of kidney cancer whose incidence and mortality rate are increasing. Identifying immune-related lncRNAs and constructing a model would probably provide new insights into biomarkers and immunotherapy for ccRCC and aid in the prognosis prediction. Methods. The transcription profile and clinical information were obtained from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA). Immune-related gene sets and transcription factor genes were downloaded from GSEA website and Cistrome database, respectively. Tumor samples were divided into the training set and the testing set. Immune-related differentially expressed lncRNAs (IDElncRNAs) were identified from the whole set. Univariate Cox regression, LASSO, and stepwise multivariate Cox regression were performed to screen out ideal prognostic IDElncRNAs (PIDElncRNAs) from the training set and develop a multi-lncRNA signature. Results. Consequently, AC012236.1, AC078778.1, AC078950.1, AC087318.1, and AC092535.4 were screened to be significantly related to the prognosis of ccRCC patients, which were used to establish the five-lncRNA signature. Its wide diagnostic capacity was revealed in different subgroups of clinical parameters. Then AJCC-stage, Fuhrman-grade, pharmaceutical, age, and risk score regarded as independent prognostic factors were integrated to construct a nomogram, whose good performance in predicting 3-, 5-, and 7-year overall survival of ccRCC patients was revealed by time-dependent ROC curves and verified by the testing sets and ICGC dataset. The calibration plots showed great agreement of the nomogram between predicted and observed outcomes. Functional enrichment analysis showed the signature and each lncRNA were mainly enriched in pathways associated with regulation of immune response. Several kinds of tumor-infiltrating immune cells like regulatory T cells, T follicular helper cells, CD8+ T cells, resting mast cells, and naïve B cells were significantly correlated with the signature. Conclusion. Therefore, we constructed a five-lncRNA model integrating clinical parameters to help predict the prognosis of ccRCC patients. The five immune-related lncRNAs could potentially be therapeutic targets for immunotherapy in ccRCC in the future.


2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. e000552 ◽  
Author(s):  
Niklas Klümper ◽  
Damian J Ralser ◽  
Emma Grace Bawden ◽  
Jenny Landsberg ◽  
Romina Zarbl ◽  
...  

BackgroundLymphocyte activating 3 (LAG3, LAG-3, CD223) is a promising target for immune checkpoint inhibition in clear cell renal cell carcinoma (KIRC). The aim of this study was to investigate the epigenetic regulation ofLAG3in KIRC by methylation.MethodsWe correlated quantitativeLAG3methylation levels with transcriptional activity, immune cell infiltration, and overall survival in a cohort of n=533 patients with KIRC and n=160 normal adjacent tissue (NAT) samples obtained from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA). Furthermore, we analyzedLAG3methylation in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) and KIRC cell lines. We validated correlations between LAG3 expression, immune cell infiltrates, survival, and methylation in an independent KIRC cohort (University Hospital Bonn (UHB) cohort, n=118) by means of immunohistochemistry and quantitative methylation-specific PCR.ResultsWe found differential methylation profiles among PBMCs, NAT, KIRC cell lines, and KIRC tumor tissue. Methylation strongly correlated with LAG3 mRNA expression in KIRCs (TCGA cohort) and KIRC cell lines. In the UHB cohort, methylation correlated with LAG3-positive immune cells and tumor-intrinsic LAG3 protein expression. Furthermore,LAG3methylation strongly correlated with signatures of distinct immune cell infiltrates, an interferon-y signature (TCGA cohort), and immunohistochemically quantified CD45+, CD8+, and CD4+immune cell infiltrates (UHB cohort). LAG3 mRNA expression (TCGA cohort), methylation (both cohorts), and tumor cell-intrinsic protein expression (UHB cohort) was significantly associated with overall survival.ConclusionOur data suggest an epigenetic regulation of LAG3 expression in tumor and immune cells via DNA methylation. LAG3 expression and methylation is associated with a subset of KIRCs showing a distinct clinical course and immunogenicity. Our study provides rationale for further testingLAG3DNA methylation as a predictive biomarker for response to LAG3 immune checkpoint inhibitors.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ting Li ◽  
Wenjia Hui ◽  
Feng Gao

Abstract Background: Immunotherapy is a new strategy for Colorectal cancer (CRC) treatment. Tumor mutation burden (TMB) may act as an emerging biomarker for predicting responses to immunotherapy. Nevertheless, no studies investigate if these gene mutations correlate to TMB and tumor-infiltrating immune cells. Methods: Somatic mutation data for CRC samples were obtained from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and the International Cancer Genome Consortium (ICGC) datasets. Then, we investigated the relationship between these mutant genes, TMB and overall survival outcomes. GSEA analysis was performed to explore the underlying mechanism of mutant gene. Finally, we further verified the connection between gene mutations and immune response.Results: We identified 17 common mutant genes shared by both two cohorts. Further analysis found that MUC4 mutation was strongly related to higher TMB and predicted a poorer prognosis. Moreover, functional enrichment analysis of samples with MUC4 mutation revealed that they were involved in regulating the natural killer cell mediated cytotoxicity signaling pathway. Significant changes in the proportion of the immune cells of CD8+ T cells, activated NK cells, M1 macrophages and resting memory CD4+ T cells were observed using the CIBERSORT algorithm. Conclusions: Our research revealed that MUC4 mutation significantly correlated with increased TMB, a worse prognosis and modulating the immune microenvironment, which may be considered a biomarker to predict the outcome of the immune response in colorectal cancer.


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lei Liu ◽  
Qiuchen Zhao ◽  
Chao Cheng ◽  
Jingwen Yi ◽  
Hongyan Sun ◽  
...  

Tumor-infiltrating immune cells shape the tumor microenvironment and are closely related to clinical outcomes. Several transcription factors (TFs) have also been reported to regulate the antitumor activity and immune cell infiltration. This study aimed to quantify the populations of different immune cells infiltrated in tumor samples based on the bulk RNA sequencing data obtained from 50 cancer patients using the CIBERSORT and the EPIC algorithm. Weighted gene coexpression network analysis (WGCNA) identified eigengene modules strongly associated with tumorigenesis and the activation of CD4+ memory T cells, dendritic cells, and macrophages. TF genes FOXM1, MYBL2, TAL1, and ERG are central in the subnetworks of the eigengene modules associated with immune-related genes. The analysis of The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) cancer data confirmed these findings and further showed that the expression of these potential TF genes regulating immune infiltration, and the immune-related genes that they regulated, was associated with the survival of patients within multiple cancers. Exome-seq was performed on 24 paired samples that also had RNA-seq data. The expression quantitative trait loci (eQTL) analysis showed that mutations were significantly more frequent in the regions flanking the TF genes compared with those of non-TF genes, suggesting a driver role of these TF genes regulating immune infiltration. Taken together, this study presented a practical method for identifying genes that regulate immune infiltration. These genes could be potential biomarkers for cancer prognosis and possible therapeutic targets.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yuanhe Wang ◽  
Jianyi Li ◽  
Cheng Shao ◽  
Xiaojie Tang ◽  
Yukun Du ◽  
...  

Abstract Background: Autophagy-related genes (ARGs) have been confirmed to have an important role in tumorigenesis and tumor microenvironment formation. Nevertheless, a systematic analysis of ARGs and their clinical significance in sarcoma patients is lacking.Methods: Gene expression files from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database and Genotype-Tissue Expression (GTEx) were used to select differentially expressed genes (DEGs). Differentially expressed ARGs (DEARGs) were determined by matching the DEG and HADb gene sets, which were evaluated by functional enrichment analysis. Unsupervised clustering of the identified DEARGs was conducted, and associations with tumor microenvironment (TME), immune checkpoints, and immune cells were analyzed simultaneously. Two prognostic signatures, one for overall survival (OS) and one for disease-free survival (DFS), were established and validated in an independent set. Results: In total, 84 DEIRGs and two clusters were identified. TME scores, five immune checkpoints, and several types of immune cells were found to be significantly different between twp clusters. Two prognostic signatures incorporating DEARGs showed favorable discrimination and were successfully validated. Two nomograms combining signature and clinical variables were generated. The C-indexes were 0.818 and 0.636 for the OS and DFS nomograms, respectively.Conclusion: This comprehensive analyses of the ARG landscape in sarcoma showed novel ARGs related to carcinogenesis and the immune microenvironment. These findings have implications for prognosis and therapeutic responses, which reveal novel potential prognostic biomarkers, promote precision medicine, and provide potential novel targets for immunotherapy.


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