Mining TCGA data for key biomarkers related to immune microenvironment in endometrial carcinoma by immune score and weighted correlation network analysis
- 1Guangzhou Women and Children’s Medical Center, Guangzhou Medical University, China
- 2School of Basic Medical Sciences, Chengdu University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, China
- 3Molecular Medicine Research Center, West China Hospital of Sichuan University, China
- 4West China School of Medicine, West China Hospital, Sichuan University, China
Background: Endometrial cancer (EC) is one of the most lethal gynecological cancers around the world. The aim of this study is to identify the potential immune microenvironment-related biomarkers associated with the prognosis for EC.
Methods: RNA-seq data and clinical information of EC patients were derived from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA). The immune score of each EC sample was obtained by the ESTIMATE algorithm. Weighted gene co-expression network analysis (WCGNA) was used to identify the interesting module and potential key genes concerning the immune score. The expression patterns of the key genes were then verified via the GEPIA database. Finally, CIBERSORT was applied to evaluate the relative abundances of 22 immune cell types in EC.
Results: Immune scores were significantly associated with tumor grade and histology of EC, and high immune scores may exert a protective influence on the survival outcome for EC. WCGNA indicated that the black module was significantly correlated with the immune score. Function analysis revealed it mainly involved in those terms related to immune regulation and inflammatory response. Moreover, 11 key genes (APOL3, C10orf54, CLEC2B, GIMAP1, GIMAP4, GIMAP6, GIMAP7, GIMAP8, GYPC, IFFO1, TAGAP) were identified from the black module, validated by the GEPIA database, and revealed strong correlations with infiltration levels of multiple immune cell types, as was the prognosis of EC.
Conclusion: In this study, 11 key genes showed abnormal expressions and strong correlations with immune infiltration in EC, most of which were significantly associated with the prognosis of EC. These findings made them promising therapeutic targets for the treatment of EC.
Keywords: endometrial cancer, immune microenvironment, biomarker, Estimate, CIBERSORT, WCGNA
Received: 23 Dec 2020;
Accepted: 16 Feb 2021.
Copyright: © 2021 Chengbin, Tang, Zhang and Li. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Mx. Yongqiang Zhang, Molecular Medicine Research Center, West China Hospital of Sichuan University, Chengdu, 610041, Sichuan Province, China, 859815764@qq.com
Dr. Gen Li, Guangzhou Women and Children’s Medical Center, Guangzhou Medical University, Guangzhou, Guangdong Province, China, superleegen@hotmail.com
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