Identification of prognostic biomarkers associated with tumor microenvironment in ceRNA network for esophageal squamous cell carcinoma: a bioinformatics study based on TCGA database

Abstract

Background Esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) is the most common histological type of esophageal cancer in the world with high incidence rate and poor prognosis. Infiltrated immune and stromal cells are vital components of tumor microenvironment (TME) and have a significant impact on the progression of ESCC. The competitive endogenous RNA (ceRNA) hypothesis has been proved important in the molecular biological mechanisms of tumor development. However, there are few studies on the relationship between ceRNA and ESCC TME. Methods The proportion of tumor-infiltrating immune cells and the amount of stromal and immune cells in ESCC cases were calculated from The Cancer Genome Atlas database using the CIBERSORT and ESTIMATE calculation methods. After stratified identification of differentially expressed genes, WGCNA and miRNA prediction system were applied to construct ceRNA network. Finally, PPI network and survival analysis were selected to discriminate prognostic signature. And the results were verified in two independent groups from Gene Expression Omnibus and Lanzhou, China. Results We found that high Stromal and ESTIMATE scores were significantly associated with poor overall survival. Three TME-related key prognostic genes were screened, namely, LCP2, CD86, SLA. And the expression of them was significantly correlated with infiltrated immunocytes. It is also found that ESTIMATE Score and the expression of CD86 were both related to TNM system of ESCC. Conclusions We identified three novel TME-related prognostic markers and their lncRNA-miRNA-mRNA pathway in ESCC patients, which may provide new strategies for the targeted therapy.

Exploiting the Molecular Basis of Oesophageal Cancer for Targeted Therapies and Biomarkers for Drug Response: Guiding Clinical Decision-Making

“…Due to the higher somatic mutation rate observed in OSCC [ 14 ], the tumor mutation burden (TMB) is a risk- independent prognostic factor in oesophageal cancer [ 16 , 40 ]. A higher TMB level occurs in tumors, resulting in a better anti-tumor immune response and a better prognosis [ 23 , 37 ]. Although the prevalence of TMB- High varies widely between different types of tumors, it is a reliable indicator of treatment response [ 37 , 39 , 43 ].…”

Serine and one-carbon metabolism sustain non-melanoma skin cancer progression

“…Unlike cSCCs, one of the main factors affecting the low survival rate of HNSCC, is the high percentage of diagnosis at advanced stage, being the recurrence rate of about 50% during the first 2 years from diagnosis. For this reason, several clinical and/or pathological parameters have been indicated to predict prognosis, recurrence, and survival, and to drive the therapeutic choice [31][32][33][34][35][36][37]. Notably, cSCCs and HNSCCs display hallmarks of solid tumors mildly responsive to systemic immunotherapy [38][39][40][41][42][43][44][45].…”