scholarly journals Construction of a Six Immune-Related lncRNAs Signature to Predict Outcome, Immune Cell Infiltration and Immunotherapy Response in Patients with Hepatocellular Carcinoma

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pengcheng Zhou ◽  
Jiang Wei ◽  
Lu Yuhua ◽  
Wang Lei ◽  
Zhang Yewei
Keyword(s):  
Hepatocellular Carcinoma ◽  
High Risk ◽  
Tumor Microenvironment ◽  
Immune Cells ◽  
Immune Cell ◽  
Cox Regression ◽  
Risk Group ◽  
Immune Cell Infiltration ◽  
Biological Processes ◽  
Qrt Pcr

Abstract Background: Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the most lethal malignant tumors worldwide with poor prognosis. Growing evidence has demonstrated that immune-related long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) are relevant to tumor microenvironment (TME) and can help to assess the effects of immunotherapy and evaluate prognosis. This study aimed to identify an immune-related lncRNA signature for the prospective assessment of immunotherapy and prognosis in HCC. Methods: HCC RNA-seq data and clinical information were downloaded from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) project database. Firstly, we used ESTIMATE to evaluate the tumor microenvironment (TME). Then, cox regression analysis was used to construct a prognostic signature and the risk score. Univariate Cox regression, multivariate Cox regression, principal components analysis (PCA), the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve and stratification analyses were applied to confirm. Gene set enrichment analysis (GSEA) analysis was employed to explore the biological processes and pathways. Besides, CIBERSORT was used to estimate the abundance of tumor-infiltrating immune cells (TIICs). Furthermore, the relationship between the immune-related lncRNA signature and immune checkpoint genes was investigated. Finally, quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) assays were used to demonstrated the expression of the six lncRNAs. Results:.We identified a six immune-related lncRNAs (MSC-AS1, AC145207.5, SNHG3, AL365203.2, AL031985.3, NRAV) with the ability to stratify patients into high-risk and low-risk groups with significantly different survival. Univariate Cox regression, multivariate Cox regression, ROC and stratification analyses confirmed that the six immune-related lncRNA signature was a novel independent prognostic factor in HCC patients. The high-risk group and low-risk group illustrated different distributions in PCA. GSEA suggested that the six immune-related lncRNA signature is involved in the immune-related biological processes and pathways. Besides, the six immune-related lncRNA signature was associated with the infiltration of immune cells. Furthermore, the six immune-related lncRNA signature was associated with the expression of critical immune genes and could predict the clinical response of immunotherapy. Finally, qRT-PCR demonstrated that the six lncRNAs were significantly differentially expressed in HCC cell lines and normal hepatic cell line. Conclusions: In summary, we identified a six immune-related lncRNA signature with the ability to predict outcome, immune cell infiltration and immunotherapy response in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma.

scholarly journals Identification of Novel Tumor Microenvironment-Related Long Noncoding RNAs to Determine the Prognosis and Response to Immunotherapy of Hepatocellular Carcinoma Patients

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shenglan Huang ◽  
Jian Zhang ◽  
Xiaolan Lai ◽  
Lingling Zhuang ◽  
Jianbing Wu
Keyword(s):  
Hepatocellular Carcinoma ◽  
High Risk ◽  
Tumor Microenvironment ◽  
Immune Cells ◽  
Risk Model ◽  
Cox Regression ◽  
Risk Group ◽  
Low Risk ◽  
Kaplan Meier ◽  
Treatment Responses

Introduction: Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the most common malignant tumors with poor prognosis. The tumor microenvironment (TME) plays a vital role in HCC progression. Thus, this research was designed to analyze the correlation between the TME and the prognosis of HCC patients and to construct a TME-related long noncoding RNA (lncRNA) signature to determine HCC patients’ prognosis and response to immunotherapy.Methods: We assessed the stromal–immune–estimate scores within the HCC microenvironment using the ESTIMATE (Estimation of Stromal and Immune Cells in Malignant Tumor Tissues Using Expression Data) algorithm based on The Cancer Genome Atlas database, and their associations with survival and clinicopathological parameters were also analyzed. Thereafter, differentially expressed lncRNAs were filtered out according to the immune and stromal scores. Cox regression analysis was performed to build a TME-related lncRNA risk signature. Kaplan–Meier analysis was used to explore the prognostic value of the risk signature. Furthermore, we explored the biological functions and immune microenvironment features in the high- and low-risk groups. Lastly, we probed the association of the risk model with treatment responses to immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) in HCC.Results: The stromal, immune, and estimate scores were obtained utilizing the ESTIMATE algorithm for patients with HCC. Kaplan–Meier analysis showed that high scores were significantly correlated with better prognosis in HCC patients. Six TME-related lncRNAs were screened to construct the prognostic model. The Kaplan–Meier curves suggested that HCC patients with low risk had better prognosis than those with high risk. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve and Cox regression analyses indicated that the risk model could predict HCC survival exactly and independently. Functional enrichment analysis revealed that some tumor- and immune-related pathways were activated in the high-risk group. We also revealed that some immune cells, which were important in enhancing immune responses toward cancer, were significantly increased in the low-risk group. In addition, there was a close correlation between ICIs and the risk signature, which can be used to predict the treatment responses of HCC patients.Conclusion: We analyzed the influence of the stromal, immune, and estimate scores on the prognosis of HCC patients. A novel TME-related lncRNA risk model was established, which could be effectively applied as an independent prognostic biomarker and predictor of ICIs for HCC patients.

scholarly journals Glucose-6-Phosphate Dehydrogenase is a Prognostic Biomarker and Correlated with Immune Infiltrates in Hepatocellular Carcinoma

2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yang Bu ◽  
Kejun Liu ◽  
Yiming Niu ◽  
Ji Hao ◽  
Lei Cui ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Hepatocellular Carcinoma ◽  
Tumor Microenvironment ◽  
Liver Cancer ◽  
Immune Cell ◽  
Cox Regression ◽  
Functional Enrichment ◽  
Cell Infiltration ◽  
Immune Cell Infiltration ◽  
Potential Biomarker ◽  
Glucose 6 Phosphate Dehydrogenase

Abstract Background: Glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase (G6PD) plays an important role in the metabolic and immunological aspects of tumors. In hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), the alteration of tumor microenvironment influences recurrence and metastasis. We extracted G6PD-related data from public databases of HCC tissues and used a bioinformatics approach to explore the correlation between G6PD expression and clinicopathological features and prognosis of immune cell infiltration in HCC.Methods: We extract G6PD expression information from TCGA and GEO databases in liver cancer tissues and normal tissues, validated by immunohistochemistry, and the correlation between G6PD expression and clinical features is analyzed, and the clinical significance of G6PD in liver cancer is assessed by Kaplan-Meier, Cox regression and prognostic line graph models. Functional enrichment analysis is performed by protein-protein interaction (PPI) network, GO/KEGG, GSEA and G6PD-associated differentially expressed genes (DEGs). TIMER and ssGSEA packages are used to assess the correlation between expression and the level of immune cell infiltration.Results: Our results show that G6PD expression is significantly upregulated in hepatocellular carcinoma tissues (P < 0.001). G6PD expression is associated with histological grade, pathological stage, T-stage, vascular infiltration and AFP level (P < 0.05); HCC patients in the low G6PD expression group had longer overall survival and better prognosis compared with the high G6PD expression group (P < 0.05). The level of G6PD expression also affects the levels of macrophages, unactivated dendritic cells, B cells, and follicular helper T cells in the tumor microenvironment.Conclusion: High expression of G6PD is a potential biomarker for poor prognosis of hepatocellular carcinoma, and G6PD may be a target for immunotherapy of HCC.

scholarly journals A Novel Signature to Predict Thyroid Cancer Prognosis and Immune Landscape Using Immune-Related LncRNA Pairs

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
BO SONG ◽  
Lijun Tian ◽  
Fan Zhang ◽  
Zheyu Lin ◽  
Boshen Gong ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Regression Analysis ◽  
Thyroid Cancer ◽  
High Risk ◽  
Small Molecule ◽  
Immune Cell ◽  
Cox Regression ◽  
Risk Group ◽  
High Risk Group ◽  
Immune Cell Infiltration ◽  
Cox Regression Analysis

Abstract Background: Thyroid cancer (TC) is the most common endocrine malignancy worldwide. The incidence of TC is high and increasing worldwide due to continuous improvements in diagnostic technology. TC is still often overtreated due to a lack of reliable diagnostic biomarkers. Therefore, determining accurate prognostic predictions to stratify TC patients is important.Methods: Raw data were downloaded from the TCGA database, and pairwise comparisons were applied to identify differentially expressed immune-related lncRNA (DEirlncRNA) pairs. Then, we used univariate Cox regression analysis and a modified Lasso algorithm on these pairs to construct a risk assessment model for TC. Next, TC patients were assigned to high- and low-risk groups based on the optimal cutoff score of the model for the 1-year ROC curve. We evaluated the signature in terms of prognostic independence, predictive value, immune cell infiltration, ICI-related molecules and small-molecule inhibitor efficacy. Results: We identified 30 DEirlncRNA pairs through Lasso regression, and 14 pairs served as the novel predictive signature. The high-risk group had a significantly poorer prognosis than the low-risk group. Cox regression analysis revealed that this immune-related signature can predict prognosis independently and reliably for TC. With the CIBERSORT algorithm, we found an association between the signature and immune cell infiltration. Additionally, several immune checkpoint inhibitor (ICI)-related molecules, such as PD-1 and PD-L1, showed a negative correlation with the high-risk group. We further found that some commonly used small-molecule inhibitors, such as sunitinib, were related to this new signature. Conclusions: We constructed a prognostic immune-related lncRNA signature that can predict TC patient survival without considering the technical bias of different platforms, and this signature also sheds light on TC overall prognosis and novel clinical treatments, such as ICB therapy and small molecular inhibitors.

Identification of Novel Tumor Microenvironment-Related Long Non-coding RNAs to Predict the Prognosis for Hepatocellular Carcinoma

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shenglan Huang ◽  
Jian Zhang ◽  
Dan Li ◽  
Xiaolan Lai ◽  
Lingling Zhuang ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Hepatocellular Carcinoma ◽  
High Risk ◽  
Tumor Microenvironment ◽  
Cox Regression ◽  
Risk Group ◽  
High Risk Group ◽  
Low Risk ◽  
Clinicopathological Parameters ◽  
Kaplan Meier ◽  
The Impact

Abstract Introduction: Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the most common malignant tumors with poor prognosis. Tumor microenvironment (TME) plays a vital role in the tumor progression of HCC. Thus, we aimed to analyze the association of TME with HCC prognosis, and construct an TME-related lncRNAs signature for predicting the prognosis of HCC patients.Methods: We firstly assessed the stromal/immune /Estimate scores within the HCC microenvironment using the ESTIMATE algorithm based on TCGA database, and its associations with survival and clinicopathological parameters were also analyzed. Then, different expression lncRNAs were filtered out according to immune/stromal scores. Cox regression was performed to built an TME-related lncRNAs risk signature. Kaplan–Meier analysis was carried out to explored the prognostic values of the risk signature. Furthermore, we explored the biological functions and immune microenvironment feathers in high- and low risk groups. Lastly, we probed the association of the risk signature with the treatment responses to immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) in HCC by comparing the immunophenoscore (IPS).Results: Stromal/immune /Estimate scores of HCC patients were obtained based on the ESTIMATE algorithm. The Kaplan-Meier curve analysis showed the high stromal/immune/ Estimate scores were significantly associated with better prognosis of the HCC patients. Then, six TME-related lncRNAs were screened for constructing the prognosis model. Kaplan-Meier survival curves suggested that HCC patients in high-risk group had worse prognosis than those with low-risk. ROC curve and Cox regression analyses demonstrated the signature could predict HCC survival exactly and independently. Function enrichment analysis revealed that some tumor- and immune-related pathways associated with HCC tumorigenesis and progression might be activated in high-risk group. We also discovered that some immune cells, which were beneficial to enhance immune responses towards cancer, were remarkably upregulated in low-risk group. Besides, there was closely correlation of immune checkmate inhibitors (ICIs) with the risk signature and the signature can be used to predict treatment response of ICIs.Conclusions: We analyzed the impact of the tumor microenvironment scores on the prognosis of patients with HCC. A novel TME-related prognostic risk signature was established, which may improve prognostic predictive accuracy and guide individualized immunotherapy for HCC patients.

scholarly journals Identification of Clinical and Tumor Microenvironment Characteristics of Hypoxia-Related Risk Signature in Lung Adenocarcinoma

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zili Dai ◽  
Taisheng Liu ◽  
Guihong Liu ◽  
Zhen Deng ◽  
Peng Yu ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Overall Survival ◽  
High Risk ◽  
Tumor Microenvironment ◽  
Lung Adenocarcinoma ◽  
Immune Cell ◽  
Risk Group ◽  
High Risk Group ◽  
Cell Infiltration ◽  
Immune Cell Infiltration ◽  
Related Risk

Background: Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer-related death globally. Hypoxia can suppress the activation of the tumor microenvironment (TME), which contributes to distant metastasis. However, the role of hypoxia-mediated TME in predicting the diagnosis and prognosis of lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD) patients remains unclear.Methods: Both RNA and clinical data from the LUAD cohort were downloaded from the Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) databases. Both univariate and multivariate Cox regression analyses were used to further screen prognosis-related hypoxia gene clusters. Time-dependent receiver operation characteristic (ROC) curves were established to evaluate the predictive sensitivity and specificity of the hypoxia-related risk signature. The characterization of gene set enrichment analysis (GSEA) and TME immune cell infiltration were further explored to identify hypoxia-related immune infiltration.Results: Eight hypoxia-related genes (LDHA, DCN, PGK1, PFKP, FBP1, LOX, ENO3, and CXCR4) were identified and established to construct a hypoxia-related risk signature. The high-risk group showed a poor overall survival compared to that of the low-risk group in the TCGA and GSE68465 cohorts (p &lt; 0.0001). The AUCs for 1-, 3-, and 5-year overall survival were 0.736 vs. 0.741, 0.656 vs. 0.737, and 0.628 vs. 0.649, respectively. The high-risk group was associated with immunosuppression in the TME.Conclusion: The hypoxia-related risk signature may represent an independent biomarker that can differentiate the characteristics of TME immune cell infiltration and predict the prognosis of LUAD.

scholarly journals Identification and Validation of a Tumor Microenvironment-Related Gene Signature in Hepatocellular Carcinoma Prognosis

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Changjing Huang ◽  
Chenyue Zhang ◽  
Jie Sheng ◽  
Dan Wang ◽  
Yingke Zhao ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Hepatocellular Carcinoma ◽  
Survival Analysis ◽  
High Risk ◽  
Tumor Microenvironment ◽  
Immune Cell ◽  
Risk Group ◽  
Gene Signature ◽  
Low Risk ◽  
Cell Infiltration ◽  
Related Gene

Background: Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is a typical inflammatory-related malignant tumor with complex immune tolerance microenvironment and poor prognosis. In this study, we aimed to construct a novel immune-related gene signature for the prognosis of HCC patients, exploring tumor microenvironment (TME) cell infiltration characterization and potential mechanisms.Methods: A total of 364 HCC samples with follow-up information in the TCGA-LIHC dataset were analyzed for the training of the prognostic signature. The Least Absolute Shrinkage and Selector Operation (LASSO) regression based on the IRGs was conducted to identify the prognostic genes and establish an immune risk signature. The immune cell infiltration in TME was estimated via the CIBERSORT method. Gene Set Variation Analysis (GSVA) was conducted to compare the biological pathways involved in the low-risk and high-risk groups. Furthermore, paraffin sections of HCC tissue microarrays containing 77 patients from Fudan University Shanghai Cancer Center were used for IHC staining. The clinical characteristics of the 77 HCC patients were collected and summarized for survival analysis validation via the Kaplan–Meier (KM) method.Results: Three-gene signature with close immune correlation (Risk score = EPO * 0.02838 + BIRC5 * 0.02477 + SPP1 * 0.0002044) was constructed eventually and proven to be an effective prognostic factor for HCC patients. The patients were divided into a high-risk and a low-risk group according to the optimal cutoff, and the survival analysis revealed that HCC samples with high-risk immuno-score had significantly poorer outcomes than the low-risk group (p &lt; 0.0001). The results of CIBERSORT suggested that the immune cell activation was relatively higher in the low-risk group with better prognosis. Besides, GSVA analysis showed multiple signaling differences between the high- and low-risk group, indicating that the three-gene prognostic model can affect the prognosis of patients by affecting immune-related mechanisms. Tissue microarray (TMA) results further confirmed that the expression of three genes in HCC tissues was closely related to the prognosis of patients, respectively.Conclusion: In this study, we constructed and validated a robust three-gene signature with close immune correlation in HCC, which presented a reliable performance in the prediction of HCC patients’ survival.

scholarly journals Development and validation of ferroptosis-related lncRNAs signature for hepatocellular carcinoma

PeerJ ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
pp. e11627
Author(s):  
Jiaying Liang ◽  
Yaofeng Zhi ◽  
Wenhui Deng ◽  
Weige Zhou ◽  
Xuejun Li ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Hepatocellular Carcinoma ◽  
High Risk ◽  
Immune Cell ◽  
Cox Regression ◽  
Malignant Tumors ◽  
Risk Group ◽  
Expression Profiles ◽  
Immune Checkpoint Blockade ◽  
High Risk Group ◽  
The Cancer Genome Atlas

Background Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) with high heterogeneity is one of the most frequent malignant tumors throughout the world. However, there is no research to establish a ferroptosis-related lncRNAs (FRlncRNAs) signature for the patients with HCC. Therefore, this study was designed to establish a novel FRlncRNAs signature to predict the survival of patients with HCC. Method The expression profiles of lncRNAs were acquired from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) database. FRlncRNAs co-expressed with ferroptosis-related genes were utilized to establish a signature. Cox regression was used to construct a novel three FRlncRNAs signature in the TCGA cohort, which was verified in the GEO validation cohort. Results Three differently expressed FRlncRNAs significantly associated with prognosis of HCC were identified, which composed a novel FRlncRNAs signature. According to the FRlncRNAs signature, the patients with HCC could be divided into low- and high-risk groups. Patients with HCC in the high-risk group displayed shorter overall survival (OS) contrasted with those in the low-risk group (P < 0.001 in TCGA cohort and P = 0.045 in GEO cohort). This signature could serve as a significantly independent predictor in Cox regression (multivariate HR > 1, P < 0.001), which was verified to a certain extent in the GEO cohort (univariate HR > 1, P < 0.05). Meanwhile, it was also a useful tool in predicting survival among each stratum of gender, age, grade, stage, and etiology,etc. This signature was connected with immune cell infiltration (i.e., Macrophage, Myeloid dendritic cell, and Neutrophil cell, etc.) and immune checkpoint blockade targets (PD-1, CTLA-4, and TIM-3). Conclusion The three FRlncRNAs might be potential therapeutic targets for patients, and their signature could be utilized for prognostic prediction in HCC.

scholarly journals Hypoxic Characteristic in the Immunosuppressive Microenvironment of Hepatocellular Carcinoma

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhuomao Mo ◽  
Daiyuan Liu ◽  
Dade Rong ◽  
Shijun Zhang
Keyword(s):  
Hepatocellular Carcinoma ◽  
Immune Cell ◽  
Cox Regression ◽  
Cancer Genome ◽  
Gene Set Enrichment Analysis ◽  
The Cancer Genome Atlas ◽  
Cell Infiltration ◽  
Immune Checkpoints ◽  
Immune Cell Infiltration ◽  
Immunosuppressive Microenvironment

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.

Identification of Immune-Related Prognostic Biomarkers in Pancreatic Cancer

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (12) ◽  
pp. 1355-1367
Author(s):  
Xiaoyan Lin ◽  
Jiakang Ma ◽  
Kaikai Ren ◽  
Mingyu Hou ◽  
Bo Zhou ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Pancreatic Cancer ◽  
Tumor Microenvironment ◽  
Risk Score ◽  
Immune Cells ◽  
Immune Cell ◽  
Cox Regression ◽  
Individual Treatment ◽  
Survival Prediction ◽  
Lasso Regression ◽  
Immune Related Genes

Immunotherapy for pancreatic cancer (PC) faces significant challenges. It is urgent to find immunerelated genes for targeted therapy. We aimed to identify immune-related messenger ribonucleic acids (mRNAs) with multiple methods of comprehensive immunoenrichment analysis in predicting survival of PC. PC genomics and clinical data were downloaded from TCGA. We analyzed relative enrichment of 29 immune cells using ssGSEA and classified PC samples into three immuneinfiltrating subgroups. Immune cell infiltration level and pathways were evaluated by ESTIMATE data and KEGG. Independent risk factors were derived from the combined analysis of WGCNA, LASSO regression and Cox regression analyses. Immune risk score was calculated according to four mRNAs to identify its value in predicting survival. PPI analysis was used to analyze the connections and potential pathways among genes. Finally, PC samples were classified into three immuneinfiltrating subgroups. Immunity high subgroup had higher immune score, soakage of immune cells, HLA/PD-L1 expression level, immune-related pathways enrichment and better survivability. Four potential prognostic immune-related genes (ITGB7, RAC2, DNASE1L3, and TRAF1) were identified. Immune risk score could be a potential survival prediction indictor with high sensitivity and specificity (AUC values = 0.708, HR = 1.445). A PPI network with seven nodes and five potential targeted pathways were generated. In conclusion, we estimated the state of immune infiltration in the PC tumor microenvironment by calculating stromal and immune cells enrichment with ssGSEA algorithms, and identified four prognostic immune-related genes that affect the proportion and distribution of immune cells infiltration in the tumor microenvironment. They lay a theoretical foundation to be important immunity targets of individual treatment in PC.

scholarly journals Identification of a Pyroptosis-Related Gene Signature for Predicting Overall Survival and Response to Immunotherapy in Hepatocellular Carcinoma

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susu Zheng ◽  
Xiaoying Xie ◽  
Xinkun Guo ◽  
Yanfang Wu ◽  
Guobin Chen ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Hepatocellular Carcinoma ◽  
Overall Survival ◽  
High Risk ◽  
Regression Model ◽  
Risk Score ◽  
Cox Regression ◽  
Risk Group ◽  
Gene Signature ◽  
High Risk Group ◽  
Related Gene

Pyroptosis is a novel kind of cellular necrosis and shown to be involved in cancer progression. However, the diverse expression, prognosis and associations with immune status of pyroptosis-related genes in Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) have yet to be analyzed. Herein, the expression profiles and corresponding clinical characteristics of HCC samples were collected from the Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) databases. Then a pyroptosis-related gene signature was built by applying the least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) Cox regression model from the TCGA cohort, while the GEO datasets were applied for verification. Twenty-four pyroptosis-related genes were found to be differentially expressed between HCC and normal samples. A five pyroptosis-related gene signature (GSDME, CASP8, SCAF11, NOD2, CASP6) was constructed according to LASSO Cox regression model. Patients in the low-risk group had better survival rates than those in the high-risk group. The risk score was proved to be an independent prognostic factor for overall survival (OS). The risk score correlated with immune infiltrations and immunotherapy responses. GSEA indicated that endocytosis, ubiquitin mediated proteolysis and regulation of autophagy were enriched in the high-risk group, while drug metabolism cytochrome P450 and tryptophan metabolism were enriched in the low-risk group. In conclusion, our pyroptosis-related gene signature can be used for survival prediction and may also predict the response of immunotherapy.

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