Immune Infiltrates of m5C RNA Methylation-Related LncRNAs in Uterine Corpus Endometrial Carcinoma.

Abstract

Aberrant 5-methylcytidine (m5C) modification plays an essential role in the progression of different cancers. More and more researchers are focusing on developing a lncRNA-based risk model to assess the clinical prognosis of cancer patients. However, the impact of m5C-related lncRNAs on the prognosis of patients with uterine corpus endometrial carcinoma (UCEC), as well as the immune microenvironment of UCEC, remains unclear. Here, we comprehensively analyzed the predictive value of m5C-associated lncRNAs in UCEC and their association with the tumor immune microenvironment, according to the information extracted from the TCGA-UCEC dataset. We identified a total of 32 m5C-associated lncRNAs that were significantly correlated with the prognosis of UCEC patients. Two molecular subtypes were determined by consensus clustering analysis of these 32 m5C-associated prognostic lncRNAs. Further data showed that cluster 1 was associated with poor clinical prognosis, advanced tumor grade, higher PD-L1 expression levels, higher ESTIMATEScore, and higher immuneScore, as well as the immune cell infiltration. Then, 17 m5C-associated lncRNAs with prognostic values were obtained using LASSO regression analysis. And a risk model was constructed based on these 17 lncRNAs. It was revealed that the risk model could be used as an independent factor for UCEC prognosis. In addition, patients with UCEC in the high-risk group had higher tumor grades and immune scores. The risk model based on m5C-related lncRNAs was also closely associated with infiltrating immune cells. In conclusion, our study elucidated the crucial roles of the identified m5C-related lncRNAs in the UCEC patients' prognoses, as well as in the immune microenvironment in UCEC. The results suggest that the components of risk models based on the m5C-related lncRNAs may serve as important mediators of the immune microenvironment in UCEC.