An immune-related model based on INHBA, JAG2 and CCL19 to predict the prognoses of colon cancer patients

Xuankun Yang,Jia Yan,Yahui Jiang,Yaxu Wang

doi:10.1186/s12935-021-02000-z

Abstract

BackgroundColorectal cancer (CRC) is the leading cause of cancer deaths and most common malignant tumors worldwide. Immune-related genes (IRGs) can predict prognoses of patients and the effects of immunotherapy. A series of colon cancer (CCa) samples from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) were analyzed to provide a new perspective into this field.MethodsDifferential IRGs and IRGs with significant clinical outcomes (sIRGs) were calculated by the limma algorithm and univariate COX regression analysis. The potential molecular mechanisms of IRGs were detected by PPI, KEGG and GO analysis. Immune-related risk score model (IRRSM) was established based on multivariate COX regression analysis. Based on the median risk score of IRRSM, the high-risk group and low-risk group were distinguished. The expression levels of IHNBA and JAG2 and relationships between IHNBA and clinical features were verified by RT-qPCR.Results6 differential sIRGs of patients with CCa were selected by univariate COX regression analysis. Based on the sIRGs (INHBA, JAG2 and CCL19), the IRRSM was established to predict survival probability of CCa patients and to explore the potential correlations with clinical features. Furthermore, IRRSM reflected the infiltration status of 22 types of immune cells. The expression levels of IHNBA and JAG2 were higher in CCa tissues than that in adjacent normal tissues. The expression levels of IHNBA and JAG2 were increased in advanced T stages.ConclusionOur results illustrated that some sIRGs showed the latent value of predicting the prognoses of CCa patients and the clinical features. This study could provide a new insight for immune research and treatment strategies in CCa patients.

Highlights

Colorectal cancer (CRC) is the leading cause of cancer deaths and most common malignant tumors worldwide
Differential expression of mRNAs and Immune-related genes (IRGs) Transcriptome data and clinical data of patients with colon cancer (CCa) were acquired from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database
From the immune system process M13664 and immune response M19817 of Molecular Signatures Database, we further identified 331 IRGs, of which 29 genes including 12 down-regulated and 17 up-regulated IRGs were recognized to be associated with CCa through the correlation analysis (Additional file 1: Figure S1) (Fig. 1C, D)

Summary

Introduction

Colorectal cancer (CRC) is the leading cause of cancer deaths and most common malignant tumors worldwide. Immune-related genes (IRGs) can predict prognoses of patients and the effects of immunotherapy. With approximate 1.8 million new cases and 0.8 million deaths per year, colorectal cancer (CRC) is the 3rd most common malignant tumors and the 2nd leading cause of cancer deaths worldwide [1,2,3]. With the more insightful recognition of the importance of tumor immunological characteristics and functions such as the recruitment and infiltration of immune cells on modulating immune responses [6, 7], emerging immune-related molecules and regulators including PD-1 and PD-L1 have been identified and demonstrated to be closely related to the effectiveness of immunotherapy [8, 9]. There are real differences among the IRGs identified and assessed in various CRCrelated researches, besides, the value of IRGs in the IME for prognosis assessments of CRC remain problematic and needed further verifications by large-scale prospective studies and amounts of basic experiments

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