Development of an immune-related gene pairs signature for predicting clinical outcome in lung adenocarcinoma

Abstract

Lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD) is the main pathological subtype of Non-small cell lung cancer. We downloaded the gene expression profile and immune-related gene set from the TCGA and ImmPort database, respectively, to establish immune-related gene pairs (IRGPs). Then, IRGPs were subjected to univariate Cox regression analysis, LASSO regression analysis, and multivariable Cox regression analysis to screen and develop an IRGPs signature. The receiver operating characteristic curve (ROC) was applied for evaluating the predicting accuracy of this signature by calculating the area under ROC (AUC) and data from the GEO set was used to validate this signature. The relationship of 22 tumor-infiltrating immune cells (TIICs) to the immune risk score was also investigated. An IRGPs signature with 8 IRGPs was constructed. The AUC for 1- and 3-year overall survival in the TCGA set was 0.867 and 0.870, respectively. Similar results were observed in the AUCs of GEO set 1, 2 and 3 (GEO set 1 [1-year: 0.819; 3-year: 0.803]; GEO set 2 [1-year: 0.834; 3-year: 0.870]; GEO set 3 [1-year: 0.955; 3-year: 0.827]). Survival analysis demonstrated high-risk LUAD patients exhibited poorer prognosis. The multivariable Cox regression indicated that the risk score was an independent prognostic factor. The immune risk score was highly associated with several TIICs (Plasma cells, memory B cells, resting memory CD4 T cells, and activated NK cells). We developed a novel IRGPs signature for predicting 1- and 3- year overall survival in LUAD, which would be helpful for prognosis assessment of LUAD.