Identification of prognostic hypoxia-related genes signature on the tumor microenvironment in esophageal cancer

Abstract

<abstract> <sec><title>Background</title><p>Hypoxia is a crucial factor in the development of esophageal cancer. The relationship between hypoxia and immune status in the esophageal cancer microenvironment is becoming increasingly important in clinical practice. This study aims to clarify and investigate the possible connection between immunotherapy and hypoxia in esophageal cancer.</p> </sec> <sec><title>Methods</title><p>The Cancer Genome Atlas databases are used to find two types of esophageal cancer cases. Cox regressions analyses are used to screen genes for hypoxia-related traits. After that, the genetic signature is validated by survival analysis and the construction of ROC curves. GSEA is used to compare differences in enrichment in the two groups and is followed by the CIBERSORT tool to investigate a potentially relevant correlation between immune cells and gene signatures.</p> </sec> <sec><title>Results</title><p>We found that the esophageal adenocarcinoma hypoxia model contains 3 genes (PGK1, PGM1, SLC2A3), and the esophageal squamous cell carcinoma hypoxia model contains 2 genes (EGFR, ATF3). The findings demonstrated that the survival rate of patients in the high-risk group is lower than in the lower-risk group. Furthermore, we find that three kinds of immune cells (memory activated CD4+ T cells, activated mast cells, and M2 macrophages) have a marked infiltration in the tissues of patients in the high-risk group. Moreover, we find that PD-L1 and CD244 are highly expressed in high-risk groups.</p> </sec> <sec><title>Conclusions</title><p>Our data demonstrate that oxygen deprivation is correlated with prognosis and the incidence of immune cell infiltration in patients with both types of esophageal cancer, which provides an immunological perspective for the development of personalized therapy.</p> </sec> </abstract>

Systematic review and meta-analysis of endoscopic ultrasonography in staging diagnosis of esophageal cancer after neoadjuvant radiotherapy and chemotherapy

“…However, it has a limited role in judging the accurate depth of tumor invasion into esophageal wall, and the accuracy of evaluating T staging is poor (23). PET is more sensitive than CT in the diagnosis of primary tumors, but its limited information on the depth of tumor invasion limits its role in T staging (24,25). EUS is a gastrointestinal tract examination technology that combines an endoscope and ultrasound, and it plays a vital role in the staging of esophageal cancer and determination of the origin and depth of tumors (26,27).…”

A novel immune-related radioresistant lncRNAs signature based model for risk stratification and prognosis prediction in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma

“…However, the study focused on the prognostic role of the ir-lncRNAs with microenvironment and immune cells in ESCC is lacking, especially for ESCC with radioresistance. Identification of prognostic value of the tumor microenvironment in esophageal cancer is necessary ( Tan et al, 2021 ). In our study, we identified 11 immune genes with differential expression in the GSE 45670 cohort, and our findings further confirmed the involvement of immune alterations in the biological process of radiation resistance in ESCC.…”

Characteristics and response to next‐generation sequencing‐guided therapy in locally advanced or metastatic esophageal cancer

“…Additionally, we conducted Spearman's rank correlation test to examine correlations between 150 common immunomodulators (chemokine, receptor, MHC, immunoinhibitor and immunostimulatory) as well as immune checkpoints and the expression levels of key genes, which may provide new targets for immunotherapy. Pearson coefficient was calculated to estimate correlations between genes with mutation rates over 50% and gene markers of autophagy, 16,17 ferroptosis, 18 pyroptosis and hypoxia 19,20 …”