Abstract
Liver hepatocellular carcinoma (LIHC), an inflammation-associated cancer induced by a variety of etiological factors, is still one of the most prevalent and lethal cancers in human population. In this study, the expression profiles of immune-related genes (IRGs) were integrated with the overall survival (OS) of 378 LIHC patients based on the Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) dataset. Moreover, the differentially expressed and survival related IRGs among LIHC patients were predicted through the computational difference algorithm and COX regression analysis. As a result, 7 genes, including HSPA4, S100A10, FABP6, CACYBP, HDAC1, FCGR2B and SHC1, were retrieved to construct a predictive model associated with the overall survival (OS) of LIHC patients. Typically, the as-constructed model performed moderately in predicting prognosis, which was also correlated with tumor grade. Functional enrichment analysis revealed that the genes of high-risk group were actively involved in mRNA binding and the spliceosome pathway. Intriguingly, the prognostic index established based on IRGs reflected infiltration by multiple types of immunocytes. Our findings screen several IRGs with clinical significance, reveal the drivers of immune repertoire, and illustrate the importance of a personalized, IRG-based immune signature in LIHC recognition, surveillance, and prognosis prediction.
Highlights
Liver hepatocellular carcinoma (LIHC) is the sixth most prevalent cancer and third leading cause of cancerrelated deaths worldwide [1]
Yang et al proposed an immunerelated classifier for the prognosis of cutaneous melanoma, which was derived from immune-related genes (IRGs) and demonstrated a powerful predictive ability [14]
Altogether 329 differentially expressed immune‐related genes (IRGs) were extracted from these 7667 differentially expressed genes (DEGs), including 267 up-regulated and 62 down-regulated ones (Figure 1C and 1D)
Summary
Liver hepatocellular carcinoma (LIHC) is the sixth most prevalent cancer and third leading cause of cancerrelated deaths worldwide [1]. According to a phase I/II study on nivolumab among patients with advanced LIHC, a 19% response rate (including a 5% complete response rate) is achieved, which is expected to be further increased by the combined therapies with different ICIs or the combined treatment of small molecules with ICIs [10]. It remains largely unknown about the molecular features of immune checkpoints and their correlations with clinicopathological parameters and LIHC tumor microenvironment (TME). The clinical relevance and prognostic significance of IRGs in LIHC have to be explored
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