scholarly journals Identification of An Immune-related Signature in Predicting Prognosis of Oral Squamous Cell Carcinoma Patients

Author(s):  
Qilin Li ◽  
Xinyao Meng ◽  
Weimin Chen ◽  
Xin Chen ◽  
Jing Mao

Abstract Background: Immunotherapy is one of the most promising treatment strategies in cancer, including oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC). This study aims to identify an immune-related signature to predict clinical outcomes of OSCC patients. Methods: Gene transcriptome data of OSCC tumour and normal tissues and corresponding clinical information were downloaded from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA). Tumor Immune Estimation Resource algorithm (ESTIMATE) was used to calculate the immune/stromal-related scores. The immune/stromal scores and associated clinical characteristics of OSCC patients were evaluated. Univariate Cox proportional hazards regression analyses, least absolute shrinkage, and selection operator (LASSO) and receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analyses were performed to assess the prognostic prediction capacity. Gene Set Enrichment Analysis (GSEA) and Gene Ontology (GO) function annotation were used to analysis the functions of TME related genes.Results: 11 predictor genes were identified in the immune-related signature and overall survival (OS) in the high-risk group significantly shorter than the low-risk group. ROC analysis showed the TME related signature has well ability of predicting the total OS of OSCC patients. What’s more, GSEA and GO function annotation proved that immunity and immune-related pathways are mainly enriched in the high-risk group.Conclusions: We identified an immune-related signature that was closely correlated with the prognosis and immune response to OSCC patients. This signature may have important implications for improving the clinical survival rate of OSCC patients and provide a potential strategy for cancer immunotherapy.

BMC Cancer ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Hongyu Li ◽  
Xiliu Zhang ◽  
Chen Yi ◽  
Yi He ◽  
Xun Chen ◽  
...  

Abstract Background The prognosis of oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) patients is difficult to predict or describe due to its high-level heterogeneity and complex aetiologic factors. Ferroptosis is a novel form of iron-dependent cell death that is closely related to tumour growth and progression. This study aims to clarify the predictive value of ferroptosis-related genes (FRGs) on the overall survival(OS) of OSCC patients. Methods The mRNA expression profile of FRGs and clinical information of patients with OSCC were collected from the TCGA database. Candidate differentially expressed ferroptosis-related genes (DE-FRGs) were identified by analysing differences between OSCC and adjacent normal tissues. A gene signature of prognosis-related DE-FRGs was established by univariate Cox analysis and LASSO analysis in the training set. Patients were then divided into high- and low-risk groups according to the cut-off value of risk scores, A nomogram was constructed to quantify the contributions of gene signature and clinical parameters to OS. Then several bioinformatics analyses were used to verify the reliability and accuracy of the model in the validation set. Finally, single-sample gene set enrichment analysis (ssGSEA) was also performed to reveal the underlying differences in immune status between different risk groups. Results A prognostic model was constructed based on 10 ferroptosis-related genes. Patients in high-risk group had a significantly worse OS (p < 0.001). The gene signature was verified as an independent predictor for the OS of OSCC patients (HR > 1, p < 0.001). The receiver operating characteristic curve displayed the favour predictive performance of the risk model. The prediction nomogram successfully quantified each indicator’s contribution to survival and the concordance index and calibration plots showed its superior predictive capacity. Finally, ssGSEA preliminarily indicated that the poor prognosis in the high-risk group might result from the dysregulation of immune status. Conclusion This study established a 10-ferroptosis-releated gene signature and nomogram that can be used to predict the prognosis of OSCC patients, which provides new insight for future anticancer therapies based on potential FRG targets.


BMC Cancer ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Congyu Shi ◽  
Shan Liu ◽  
Xudong Tian ◽  
Xiaoyi Wang ◽  
Pan Gao

Abstract Background Tumor protein p53 (TP53) is the most frequently mutated gene in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSC), and TP53 mutations are associated with inhibited immune signatures and poor prognosis. We established a TP53 mutation associated risk score model to evaluate the prognosis and therapeutic responses of patients with HNSC. Methods Differentially expressed genes between patients with and without TP53 mutations were determined by using data from the HNSC cohort in The Cancer Genome Atlas database. Patients with HNSC were divided into high- and low-risk groups based on a prognostic risk score that was generated from ten TP53 mutation associated genes via the multivariate Cox regression model. Results TP53 was the most common mutant gene in HNSC, and TP53 mutations were associated with immunogenic signatures, including the infiltration of immune cells and expression of immune-associated genes. Patients in the high-risk group had significantly poorer overall survival than those in the low-risk group. The high-risk group showed less response to anti-programmed cell death protein 1 (PD-1) therapy but high sensitivity to some chemotherapies. Conclusion The risk score based on our TP53 mutation model was associated with poorer survival and could act as a specific predictor for assessing prognosis and therapeutic response in patients with HNSC.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lumeng Luo ◽  
Minghe Lv ◽  
Xuan Li ◽  
Tiankui Qiao ◽  
Kuaile Zhao ◽  
...  

Abstract Background: Recent advances in immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) have dramatically changed the therapeutic strategy against lung squamous cell carcinoma (LUSC). In the era of immunotherapy, effective biomarkers to better predict outcomes and inform treatment decisions for patients diagnosed with LUSC are urgently needed. We hypothesized that immune contexture of LUSC is potentially dictated by tumor intrinsic events, such as autophagy. Thus, we attempted to construct an autophagy-related risk signature and examine its prediction value for immune phenotype in LUSC.Method: The expression profile of LUSC was obtained from the cancer genome atlas (TCGA) database and the profile of autophagy-related genes (ARGs) was extracted. The survival‑related ARGs (sARGs) was screened out through survival analyses. Random forest was performed to select the sARGs and construct a prognostic risk signature based on these sARGs. The signature was further validated by receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis and Cox regression. GEO dataset was used as an independent testing dataset. Patients were divided into high-risk and low-risk group based on the risk score. Then, gene set enrichment analysis (GSEA) was conducted between the two groups. The Single-Sample GSEA (ssGSEA) was introduced to quantify the relative infiltration of immune cells. The correlations between risk score and several main immune checkpoints were examined. And the ESTIMATE algorithm was used to calculate the estimate/immune/stromal scores of the LUSC. Results: Four ARGs (CFLAR, RGS19, PINK1 and CTSD) with the most significant prognostic values were enrolled to construct the risk signature. Patients in high-risk group had better prognosis than the low-risk group (P < 0.0001 in TCGA; P < 0.01 in GEO) and considered as an independent prognosis factor. We also found that high-risk group indicated an immune-suppression status and had higher levels of infiltrating regulatory T cells and macrophages, which are correlated with worse outcome. Besides, risk score showed a significantly positive correlation with the expression of PD-1 and CTLA4, as well as estimate score and immune score.Conclusion: This study established a novel autophagy-related four-gene prognostic risk signature, and the autophagy-related scores are associated with immune landscape of LUSC, with higher score indicating a stronger immune-suppression status.


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lihong Huang ◽  
Xinghao Yu ◽  
Zhou Jiang ◽  
Ping Zeng

The correlation between autophagy defects and oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) has been previously studied, but only based on a limited number of autophagy-related genes in cell lines or animal models. The aim of the present study was to analyze differentially expressed autophagy-related genes through The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database to explore enriched pathways and potential biological function. Based on TCGA database, a signature composed of four autophagy-related genes (CDKN2A, NKX2-3, NRG3, and FADD) was established by using multivariate Cox regression models and two Gene Expression Omnibus datasets were applied for external validation. Gene Ontology (GO) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathway enrichment analyses were performed to study the function of autophagy-related genes and their pathways. The most significant GO and KEGG pathways were enriched in several key pathways that were related to the progression of autophagy and OSCC. Furthermore, a prognostic risk score was constructed based on the four genes; patients were then divided into two groups (i.e., high risk and low risk) in terms of the median of risk score. Prognosis of the two groups and results showed that patients at the low-risk group had a much better prognosis than those at the high-risk group, regardless of whether they were in the training datasets or validation datasets. Multivariate Cox regression results indicated that the risk score of the autophagy-related gene signatures could greatly predict the prognosis of patients after controlling for several clinical covariates. The findings of the present study revealed that autophagy-related gene signatures play an important role in OSCC and are potential prognostic biomarkers and therapeutic targets.


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tao Yan ◽  
Guoyuan Ma ◽  
Kai Wang ◽  
Weidong Liu ◽  
Weiqing Zhong ◽  
...  

Adenocarcinoma (AD) and squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) are both classified as major forms of non-small cell lung cancer, but differences in clinical prognoses and molecular mechanisms are remarkable. Recent studies have supported the importance of understanding immune status in that it influences clinical outcomes of cancer, and immunotherapies based on the theory of “immune editing” have had notable clinical success. Our study aimed to identify specific long non-coding (lnc) RNAs that control key immune-related genes and to use them to construct risk models for AD and SCC. Risk scores were used to separate patients into high- and low-risk groups, and we validated the prognostic significance of both risk scores with our own cohorts. A Gene Set Enrichment Analysis suggested that the immune responses of patients in the AD high-risk group and the SCC low-risk group tended to be weakened. Evaluation of immune infiltration revealed that the degree of infiltration of dendritic cells is of particular importance in AD. In addition, prediction of responses to immune checkpoint inhibitor (ICI) treatments, based on the T Cell Immune Dysfunction and Exclusion and immunophenoscore models, indicated that deterioration of the immune microenvironment is due mainly to T cell exclusion in AD patients and T cell dysfunction in SCC patients and that high-risk patients with SCC might benefit from ICI treatment. The prediction of downstream targets via The Cancer Proteome Atlas and RNA-seq analyses of a transfected lung cancer cell line indicated that the lncRNA LINC00996 is a potential therapeutic target in AD.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shaohua Lv ◽  
Jianhao Li ◽  
Songlin Piao ◽  
jichen Li

Abstract Background: Oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) is a frequently encountered head and neck malignancy. Increasing evidence points towards an aberrant immune response and chronic cell hypoxia in the development of OSCC. However, there is a lack of a reliable hypoxia-immune-based gene signature that may serve to accurately prognosticate OSCC. Methods: The mRNA expression data of OSCC patients was extracted from the TCGA database. Hypoxia status was identified using the t-distributed Stochastic Neighbor Embedding (t-SNE) algorithm. Both ESTIMATE and single-sample gene-set enrichment analysis (ssGSEA) was used for further evaluation of immune status. The DEGs in different hypoxia and immune status were determined. A Machine learning method-Least Absolute Shrinkage and Selection operator (LASSO) Cox regression analysis allowed us to select prognostically significant hypoxia- and immune-related mRNAs in order to construct prognostic gene signature to predict the overall survival (OS) of OSCC patients. Results: A total of 773 DEGs were classified into either Hypoxia_High and Hypoxia_Low groups. Immune-associated DEG expressions were used to divide individuals into Immune_High, Immune_ Medium and Immune_Low groups. A total of 193 mRNAs which were significant in both immune function and hypoxia status were identified. With the Lasso Cox regression model, 8 signature mRNAs (FAM122C, RNF157, RANBP17, SOWAHA, KIAA1211, RIPPLY2, INSL3, and DNAH1) associated with OS were selected for further calculation of their respective risk scores. The risk score showed a significant association with age, perineural and lymphovascular invasion. In the GEO validation cohort, a better OS was observed in patients from the low-risk group in comparison to those in the high-risk group. High-risk patients also demonstrated different immune infiltration characteristics from the low-risk group. All individuals from the TCGA OSCC cohort showed similar trends in all 6 immune checkpoints, with those of the low-risk group yielding higher immune indicator scores in contrast to their high-risk counterparts. Conclusion: The hypoxia-immune-based gene signature has prognostic potential in OSCC.


2020 ◽  
pp. 1-11
Author(s):  
Nan Lee ◽  
Xuelian Xia ◽  
Hui Meng ◽  
Weiliang Zhu ◽  
Xiankai Wang ◽  
...  

BACKGROUND: DNA methylation plays a vital role in modulating genomic function and warrants evaluation as a biomarker for the diagnosis and treatment of lung squamous cell carcinoma (LUSC). OBJECTIVE: In this study, we aimed to identify effective potential biomarkers for predicting prognosis and drug sensitivity in LUSC. METHODS: A univariate Cox proportional hazards regression analysis, a random survival forests-variable hunting (RSFVH) algorithm, and a multivariate Cox regression analysis were adopted to analyze the methylation profile of patients with LUSC included in public databases: The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA), and the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO). RESULTS: A methylated region consisting of 3 sites (cg06675147, cg07064331, cg20429172) was selected. Patients were divided into a high-risk group and a low-risk group in the training dataset. High-risk patients had shorter overall survival (OS) (hazard ratio [HR]: 2.72, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.82–4.07, P< 0.001) compared with low-risk patients. The accuracy of the prognostic signature was validated in the test and validation cohorts (TCGA, n= 94; GSE56044, n= 23). Gene set variation analysis (GSVA) showed that activity in the cell cycle/mitotic, ERBB, and ERK/MAPK pathways was higher in the high-risk compared with the low-risk group, which may lead to differences in OS.Interestingly, we observed that patients in the high-risk group were more sensitive to gemcitabine and docetaxel than the low-risk group, which is consistent with results of the GSVA. CONCLUSION: We report novel methylation sites that could be used as powerful tools for predicting risk factors for poorer survival in patients with LUSC.


2006 ◽  
Vol 13 (7) ◽  
pp. 902-909 ◽  
Author(s):  
John T. Mullen ◽  
Lei Feng ◽  
Yan Xing ◽  
Paul F. Mansfield ◽  
Jeffrey E. Gershenwald ◽  
...  

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