scholarly journals Analysis of Prognostic Alternative Splicing Reveals the Landscape of Immune Microenvironment in Thyroid Cancer

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jian Wu ◽  
Yifang Sun ◽  
Junzheng Li ◽  
Maomao Ai ◽  
Lihua You ◽  
...  

BackgroundThe incidence of thyroid cancer (THCA) continues to increase in recent decades. Accumulating evidence showed that the unbalanced alternative splicing (AS) promotes the occurrence of cancers and leads to poor prognosis of patients. However, the research on alternative splicing events in THCA is lacking, and its underlying mechanism is not fully understood. This study identifies a novel prognostic signature based on AS events to reveal the relationship of AS with tumor immune microenvironment.MethodsBased on the AS data, transcriptional data, and clinical information, the differentially expressed alternative splicings (DEASs) were screened out. Least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) regression and multi-Cox regression analyses were employed to identify prognostic results related to AS events and establish a prognostic signature. The predictive ability of the signature was assessed by Kaplan-Meier (K-M) survival curve, risk plots, and receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves. Furthermore, correlations between tumor-infiltrating immune cells, immune checkpoints, immune score and prognostic signature were analyzed.ResultsAccording to the LASSO regression analysis, a total of five AS events were selected to construct the signature. K-M survival curve showed that the higher the risk score, the worse the OS of the patients. Risk plots further confirmed this result. ROC curves indicated the high predictive efficiency of the prognostic signature. As for tumor immune microenvironment, patients in the high-risk group had a higher proportion of immune cells, including plasma cell, CD8+ T cell, macrophages (M0 and M2), and activated dendritic cell. Immune checkpoint proteins, such as PDCD1LG2, HAVCR2, CD274, etc., were significantly higher in the high-risk group. We also found that the ESTIMATE score, stromal score, and immune score were lower in the high-risk group, while the result of tumor purity was the opposite.ConclusionsCollectively, a prognostic signature consisting of five AS events in THCA was established. Furthermore, there was an inextricable correlation between immune cell infiltration, immune checkpoint proteins, and AS events. This study will provide a basis for THCA immunotherapy in the future.

Author(s):  
Jianglin Zheng ◽  
Zijie Zhou ◽  
Yue Qiu ◽  
Minjie Wang ◽  
Hao Yu ◽  
...  

Recent studies have demonstrated that long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) are implicated in the regulation of tumor cell ferroptosis. However, the prognostic value of ferroptosis-related lncRNAs has never been comprehensively explored in glioma. In this study, the transcriptomic data and clinical information of glioma patients were downloaded from TCGA, CGGA and Rembrandt databases. We identified 24 prognostic ferroptosis-related lncRNAs, 15 of which (SNAI3-AS1, GDNF-AS1, WDFY3-AS2, CPB2-AS1, WAC-AS1, SLC25A21-AS1, ARHGEF26-AS1, LINC00641, LINC00844, MIR155HG, MIR22HG, PVT1, SNHG18, PAXIP1-AS2, and SBF2-AS1) were used to construct a ferroptosis-related lncRNAs signature (FRLS) according to the least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) regression. The validity of this FRLS was verified in training (TCGA) and validation (CGGA and Rembrandt) cohorts, respectively. The Kaplan-Meier curves revealed a significant distinction of overall survival (OS) between the high- and low-risk groups. The receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves exhibited robust prognostic capacity of this FRLS. A nomogram with improved accuracy for predicting OS was established based on independent prognostic factors (FRLS, age, and WHO grade). Besides, patients in the high-risk group had higher immune, stroma, and ESTIMATE scores, lower tumor purity, higher infiltration of immunosuppressive cells, and higher expression of immune checkpoints. Patients in the low-risk group benefited significantly from radiotherapy, while no survival benefit of radiotherapy was observed for those in the high-risk group. In conclusion, we identified the prognostic ferroptosis-related lncRNAs in glioma, and constructed a prognostic signature which was associated with the immune landscape of glioma microenvironment and radiotherapy response.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhenyu Zhao ◽  
Boxue He ◽  
Qidong Cai ◽  
Pengfei Zhang ◽  
Xiong Peng ◽  
...  

Abstract Background: Lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD) accounts for a majority of cancer-related deaths worldwide annually. A recent study shows that immunotherapy is an effective method of LUAD treatment, and tumor mutation burden (TMB) was associated with the immune microenvironment and affected the immunotherapy. Exploration of the gene signature associated with tumor mutation burden and immune infiltrates in predicting prognosis in lung adenocarcinoma in this study, we explored the correlation of TMB with immune infiltration and prognosis in LUAD.Materials and Methods: In this study, we firstly got mutation data and LUAD RNA-Seq data of the LUAD from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA), and according to the TMB we divided the patients into high/low-TMB levels groups. The gene ontology (GO) pathway enrichment analysis and KOBAS-Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathways analysis were utilized to explore the molecular function of the differentially expressed genes (DEGs) between the two groups. The function enrichment analyses of DEGs were related to the immune pathways. Then, the ESTIMATE algorithm, CIBERSORT, and ssGSEA analysis were utilized to identify the relationship between TMB subgroups and immune infiltration. According to the results, Venn analysis was utilized to select the immune-related genes in DEGs. Univariate and Lasso Cox proportional hazards regression analyses were performed to construct the signature which positively associated with the immune infiltration and affected the survival. Finally, we verified the correlation between the signature and immune infiltration. Result: The exploration of the immune infiltration suggested that high-TMB subgroups positively associated with the high level of immune infiltration in LUAD patients. According to the TMB-related immune signature, the patients were divided into High/Low-risk groups, and the high-risk group was positively associated with poor prognostic. The results of the PCA analysis confirmed the validity of the signature. We also verified the effectiveness of the signature in GSE30219 and GSE72094 datasets. The ROC curves and C-index suggested the good clinical application of the TMB-related immune signature in LUAD prognosis. Another result suggested that the patients of the high-risk group were positively associated with higher TMB levels, PD-L1expression, and immune infiltration levels.Conclusion: In conclusion, our signature provides potential biomarkers for studying aspects of the TMB in LUAD such as TMB affected immune microenvironment and prognosis. This signature may provide some biomarkers which could improve the biomarkers of PD-L1 immunotherapy response and were inverted for the clinical application of the TMB in LUAD. LUAD male patients with higher TMB-levels and risk scores may benefit from immunotherapy. The high-risk patients along with higher PD-L1 expression of the signature may suitable for immunotherapy and improve their survival by detecting the TMB of LUAD.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yanjia Hu ◽  
Jing Zhang ◽  
Jing Chen

Abstract Background Hypoxia-related long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) have been proven to play a role in multiple cancers and can serve as prognostic markers. Lower-grade gliomas (LGGs) are characterized by large heterogeneity. Methods This study aimed to construct a hypoxia-related lncRNA signature for predicting the prognosis of LGG patients. Transcriptome and clinical data of LGG patients were obtained from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and the Chinese Glioma Genome Atlas (CGGA). LGG cohort in TCGA was chosen as training set and LGG cohorts in CGGA served as validation sets. A prognostic signature consisting of fourteen hypoxia-related lncRNAs was constructed using univariate and LASSO Cox regression. A risk score formula involving the fourteen lncRNAs was developed to calculate the risk score and patients were classified into high- and low-risk groups based on cutoff. Kaplan-Meier survival analysis was used to compare the survival between two groups. Cox regression analysis was used to determine whether risk score was an independent prognostic factor. A nomogram was then constructed based on independent prognostic factors and assessed by C-index and calibration plot. Gene set enrichment analysis and immune cell infiltration analysis were performed to uncover further mechanisms of this lncRNA signature. Results LGG patients with high risk had poorer prognosis than those with low risk in both training and validation sets. Recipient operating characteristic curves showed good performance of the prognostic signature. Univariate and multivariate Cox regression confirmed that the established lncRNA signature was an independent prognostic factor. C-index and calibration plots showed good predictive performance of nomogram. Gene set enrichment analysis showed that genes in the high-risk group were enriched in apoptosis, cell adhesion, pathways in cancer, hypoxia etc. Immune cells were higher in high-risk group. Conclusion The present study showed the value of the 14-lncRNA signature in predicting survival of LGGs and these 14 lncRNAs could be further investigated to reveal more mechanisms involved in gliomas.


2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Yinglian Pan ◽  
Li Ping Jia ◽  
Yuzhu Liu ◽  
Yiyu Han ◽  
Qian Li ◽  
...  

Abstract Background In this study we aimed to identify a prognostic signature in BRCA1/2 mutations to predict disease progression and the efficiency of chemotherapy ovarian cancer (OV), the second most common cause of death from gynecologic cancer in women worldwide. Methods Univariate Cox proportional-hazards and multivariate Cox regression analyses were used to identifying prognostic factors from data obtained from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database. The area under the curve of the receiver operating characteristic curve was assessed, and the sensitivity and specificity of the prediction model were determined. Results A signature consisting of two long noncoding RNAs(lncRNAs), Z98885.2 and AC011601.1, was selected as the basis for classifying patients into high and low-risk groups (median survival: 7.2 years vs. 2.3 years). The three-year overall survival (OS) rates for the high- and low-risk group were approximately 38 and 100%, respectively. Chemotherapy treatment survival rates indicated that the high-risk group had significantly lower OS rates with adjuvant chemotherapy than the low-risk group. The one-, three-, and five-year OS were 100, 40, and 15% respectively in the high-risk group. The survival rate of the high-risk group declined rapidly after 2 years of OV chemotherapy treatment. Multivariate Cox regression associated with other traditional clinical factors showed that the 2-lncRNA model could be used as an independent OV prognostic factor. Analyses of data from the Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) and Gene Ontology (GO) indicated that these signatures are pivotal to cancer development. Conclusion In conclusion, Z98885.2 and AC011601.1 comprise a novel prognostic signature for OV patients with BRCA1/2 mutations, and can be used to predict prognosis and the efficiency of chemotherapy.


Author(s):  
Xianghong Zhou ◽  
Shi Qiu ◽  
Di Jin ◽  
Kun Jin ◽  
Xiaonan Zheng ◽  
...  

Abstract Background: Papillary renal carcinoma (PRCC) is one of the important subtypes of kidney cancer, with a high degree of heterogeneity. At present, there is still a lack of robust and accurate biomarkers for the diagnosis, prognosis and treatment selection of PRCC. Considering the important role of tumor immunity in PRCC, we aim to construct a signature based on immune-related gene pairs (IRGPs) to estimate the prognostic of patients with PRCC.Methods: We obtained gene expression profiling and clinical information of patients with PRCC from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO), which were divided into discovery and validation cohorts, respectively. The immune-related genes in the samples were used to construct gene pairs, and the immune-related genes pairs (IRGPs) with robust impact for overall survival (OS) were screened out to construct the signature by univariate analysis, multivariate Cox analysis, and least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (Lasso) analysis. Then we verified the prognostic role of the signature, and assessed the relationship between this signature with tumor immune infiltration and functional pathways.Results: A total of 315 patients were included in our study, and divided to discovery (n=287) and validation (n=28) cohorts. Finally, we selected 14 IRGPs with a panel of 22 unique genes to construct the prognostic signature. According to the signature, we stratified patients into high-risk group and low-risk group. In both discovery and validation cohorts, the results of Kaplan-Meier analysis showed that there were significant differences in OS between the two groups (p<0.001). Combined with multiple clinical pathological factors, the results of multivariate analyses confirmed that this signature was an independent predictor of OS (HR, 3.548; 95%CI, 2.096−6.006; p<0.001). The results of immune infiltration analysis demonstrated that the abundance of multiple tumor-infiltration lymphocytes such as CD8+ T cells, Tregs, and T follicular cell helper were significantly higher in the high-risk group. Functional analysis showed that multiple immune-related signaling pathways were enriched in the high-risk group.Conclusions: We successfully established an individualized prognostic immune-related gene pairs signature, which can accurately and independently predict the OS of patients with PRCC.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jianyu Zhao ◽  
Bo Liu ◽  
Xiaoping Li

Abstract Background: Adrenocortical carcinoma (ACC) is a rare endocrine cancer that manifests as abdominal masses and excessive steroid hormone levels. Transcription factors (TFs) deregulation is found to be involved in adrenocortical tumorigenesis and cancer progression. This study aimed to construct a TF-based prognostic signature for prediction of survival of ACC patients.Methods: The gene expression profile for ACC patients were downloaded from TCGA and GEO datasets. The univariate Cox analysis was applied to identify survival-related TFs and the LASSO Cox regression was conducted to construct the TF signature. The multivariate analysis was used to reveal the independent prognostic factors.Results: We identified a 13-TF prognostic signature comprised of CREB3L3, NR0B1, CENPA, FOXM1, E2F2, MYBL2, HOXC11, ZIC2, ZNF282, DNMT1, TCF3, ELK4, and KLF6 using the univariate Cox analysis and LASSO Cox regression. The risk score based on the TF-signature could classify patients into low- and high-risk group. Kaplan-Meier analyses showed that patients in the high-risk group had significantly shorter overall survival compared to the low-risk patients. ROC curves showed that the prognostic signature predicted the overall survival of ACC patients with good sensitivity and specificity. Furthermore, the TF-risk score was an independent prognostic factor.Conclusion: Taken together, we identified a 13-TF prognostic marker to predict overall survival in ACC patients.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Li Liu ◽  
She Tian ◽  
Zhu Li ◽  
Yongjun Gong ◽  
Hao Zhang

Abstract Background : Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the most common clinical malignant tumors, resulting in high mortality and poor prognosis. Studies have found that LncRNA plays an important role in the onset, metastasis and recurrence of hepatocellular carcinoma. The immune system plays a vital role in the development, progression, metastasis and recurrence of cancer. Therefore, immune-related lncRNA can be used as a novel biomarker to predict the prognosis of hepatocellular carcinoma. Methods : The transcriptome data and clinical data of HCC patients were obtained by using The Cancer Genome Atlas-Liver Hepatocellular Carcinoma (TCGA‑LIHC), and immune-related genes were extracted from the Molecular Signatures Database (IMMUNE RESPONSE M19817 and IMMUNE SYSTEM PROCESS M13664). By constructing the co-expression network and Cox regression analysis, 13 immune-lncRNAs was identified to predict the prognosis of HCC patients. Patients were divided into high risk group and low risk group by using the risk score formula, and the difference in overall survival (OS) between the two groups was reflected by Kaplan-Meier survival curve. The time - dependent receiver operating characteristics (ROC) analysis and principal component analysis (PCA) were used to evaluate 13 immune -lncRNAs signature. Results : Through TCGA - LIHC extracted from 343 cases of patients with hepatocellular carcinoma RNA - Seq data and clinical data, 331 immune-related genes were extracted from the Molecular Signatures Database , co-expression networks and Cox regression analysis were constructed, 13 immune-lncRNAs signature was identified as biomarkers to predict the prognosis of patients. At the same time using the risk score median divided the patients into high risk and low risk groups, and through the Kaplan-Meier survival curve analysis found that high-risk group of patients' overall survival (OS) less low risk group of patients. The AUC value of the ROC curve is 0.828, and principal component analysis (PCA) results showed that patients could be clearly divided into two parts by immune-lncRNAs, which provided evidence for the use of 13 immune-lncRNAs signature as prognostic markers. Conclusion : Our study identified 13 immune-lncRNAs signature that can effectively predict the prognosis of HCC patients, which may be a new prognostic indicator for predicting clinical outcomes.


2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (6) ◽  
pp. 7743-7758
Author(s):  
Linlin Tan ◽  
◽  
Dingzhuo Cheng ◽  
Jianbo Wen ◽  
Kefeng Huang ◽  
...  

<abstract> <sec><title>Background</title><p>Hypoxia is a crucial factor in the development of esophageal cancer. The relationship between hypoxia and immune status in the esophageal cancer microenvironment is becoming increasingly important in clinical practice. This study aims to clarify and investigate the possible connection between immunotherapy and hypoxia in esophageal cancer.</p> </sec> <sec><title>Methods</title><p>The Cancer Genome Atlas databases are used to find two types of esophageal cancer cases. Cox regressions analyses are used to screen genes for hypoxia-related traits. After that, the genetic signature is validated by survival analysis and the construction of ROC curves. GSEA is used to compare differences in enrichment in the two groups and is followed by the CIBERSORT tool to investigate a potentially relevant correlation between immune cells and gene signatures.</p> </sec> <sec><title>Results</title><p>We found that the esophageal adenocarcinoma hypoxia model contains 3 genes (PGK1, PGM1, SLC2A3), and the esophageal squamous cell carcinoma hypoxia model contains 2 genes (EGFR, ATF3). The findings demonstrated that the survival rate of patients in the high-risk group is lower than in the lower-risk group. Furthermore, we find that three kinds of immune cells (memory activated CD4+ T cells, activated mast cells, and M2 macrophages) have a marked infiltration in the tissues of patients in the high-risk group. Moreover, we find that PD-L1 and CD244 are highly expressed in high-risk groups.</p> </sec> <sec><title>Conclusions</title><p>Our data demonstrate that oxygen deprivation is correlated with prognosis and the incidence of immune cell infiltration in patients with both types of esophageal cancer, which provides an immunological perspective for the development of personalized therapy.</p> </sec> </abstract>


2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jinyuan Shi ◽  
Pu Wu ◽  
Lei Sheng ◽  
Wei Sun ◽  
Hao Zhang

Abstract Background Papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC) is the most common type of thyroid cancer (TC), accounting for more than 80% of all cases. Ferroptosis is a novel iron-dependent and Reactive oxygen species (ROS) reliant type of cell death which is distinct from the apoptosis, necroptosis and pyroptosis. Considerable studies have demonstrated that ferroptosis is involved in the biological process of various cancers. However, the role of ferroptosis in PTC remains unclear. This study aims at exploring the expression of ferroptosis-related genes (FRG) and their prognostic values in PTC. Methods A ferroptosis-related gene signature was constructed using lasso regression analysis through the PTC datasets of the Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA). Gene Ontology (GO) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) enrichment analyses were performed to investigate the bioinformatics functions of significantly different genes (SDG) of ferroptosis. Additionally, the correlations of ferroptosis and immune cells were assessed through the single-sample gene set enrichment analysis (ssGSEA) and CIBERSORT database. Finally, SDG were test in clinical PTC specimens and normal thyroid tissues. Results LASSO regression model was utilized to establish a novel FRG signature with 10 genes (ANGPTL7, CDKN2A, DPP4, DRD4, ISCU, PGD, SRXN1, TF, TFRC, TXNRD1) to predicts the prognosis of PTC, and the patients were separated into high-risk and low-risk groups by the risk score. The high-risk group had poorer survival than the low-risk group (p < 0.001). Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis confirmed the signature's predictive capacity. Multivariate regression analysis identified the prognostic signature-based risk score was an independent prognostic indicator for PTC. The functional roles of the DEGs in the TGCA PTC cohort were explored using GO enrichment and KEGG pathway analyses. Immune related analysis demonstrated that the most types of immune cells and immunological function in the high-risk group were significant different with those in the low-risk group. Quantitative Real-Time Polymerase Chain Reaction (qRT-PCR) verified the SDG have differences in expression between tumor tissue and normal thyroid tissue. In addition, cell experiments were conducted to observe the changes in cell morphology and expression of signature’s genes with the influence of ferroptosis induced by sorafenib. Conclusions We identified differently expressed FRG that may involve in PTC. A ferroptosis-related gene signature has significant values in predicting the patients’ prognoses and targeting ferroptosis may be an alternative for PTC’s therapy.


2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
Yifang Hu ◽  
Jiahang Song ◽  
Zhen Wang ◽  
Jingbao Kan ◽  
Yaoqi Ge ◽  
...  

Background. Glioma is the most common central nervous system (CNS) cancer with a short survival period and a poor prognosis. The S100 family gene, comprising 25 members, relates to diverse biological processes of human malignancies. Nonetheless, the significance of S100 genes in predicting the prognosis of glioma remains largely unclear. We aimed to build an S100 family-based signature for glioma prognosis. Methods. We downloaded 665 and 313 glioma patients, respectively, from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and Chinese Glioma Genome Atlas (CGGA) database with RNAseq data and clinical information. This study established a prognostic signature based on the S100 family genes through multivariate COX and LASSO regression. The Kaplan–Meier curve was plotted to compare overall survival (OS) among groups, whereas Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) analysis was performed to evaluate model accuracy. A representative gene S100B was further verified by in vitro experiments. Results. An S100 family-based signature comprising 5 genes was constructed to predict the glioma that stratified TCGA-derived cases as a low- or high-risk group, whereas the significance of prognosis was verified based on CGGA-derived cases. Kaplan–Meier analysis revealed that the high-risk group was associated with the dismal prognosis. Furthermore, the S100 family-based signature was proved to be closely related to immune microenvironment. In vitro analysis showed S100B gene in the signature promoted glioblastoma (GBM) cell proliferation and migration. Conclusions. We constructed and verified a novel S100 family-based signature associated with tumor immune microenvironment (TIME), which may shed novel light on the glioma diagnosis and treatment.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document