Immune infiltrating cells in cholangiocarcinoma may become clinical diagnostic markers: based on bioinformatics analysis

Abstract

Background Intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma (ICC) is a malignant tumor originating from the secondary bile duct and its branch epithelium. Among primary liver tumors, the incidence of ICC is second only to hepatocellular carcinoma. Tumor microenvironment can regulate the occurrence and development of tumors. This study is dedicated to finding more markers that can diagnose ICC by finding the differential tumor microenvironment cells between ICC and normal tissues. Methods We wanted to study the infiltration of immune cells between the cholangiocarcinoma of the same patient and its paired non-tumor tissues, to explore the difference of immune cells in the tumor microenvironment and adjacent non-tumor tissues in the same organism. So, we searched the relevant data of patients with ICC from the GEO database and found that the GSE45001 data set meets our research needs. CIBERSORT database is used to calculate immune cell composition. Finally, perform visual analysis and data statistics to find out the differentially expressed immune cells. Results We found that the expression levels of dendritic cells activated, macrophages M2, and T cells regulatory (Tregs) in ICC were higher than normal tissues, and the expression levels of macrophages M1, monocytes, and T cells follicular helper in ICC were lower than normal tissues. Conclusion These 6 types of immune cells are expected to become molecular markers for clinical diagnosis of ICC.

The Functional Roles of Immune Cells in Primary Liver Cancer

“…CCA tumor tissues have high populations of activated DCs compared with normal tissues, indicating the association of DCs with liver cancer. 57 Although DCs are heterogeneous with various subsets, most DC phenotypes include myeloid DCs and plasmacytoid DCs. T cells are activated within lymph nodes, and mature myeloid DCs are decreased and plasmacytoid DCs are significantly increased in hepatic lymph nodes of HCC patients, suggesting functional differences depending on DC subsets in liver cancer.…”

The prognostic value of arginase-1 and glypican-3 expression levels in patients after surgical intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma resection

“…The downregulated expression of TCR light chain reduced the reactivity of T cells to antigens or mitogens, resulting in the reduction of tumor specific immune response, so as to decrease tumor clearance and promote tumor progression [ 25 ]. Therefore, Arg-1 may affect the prognosis of ICC patients through the regulation of tumor immune microenvironment, which plays an important role in the development of ICC [ 26 , 27 ]. Other studies have shown that l -ornithine produced by Arg-1 could be further metabolized into polyamines, which were important components in cell differentiation and proliferation as well as promoting tumor growth [ 28 ].…”

Tumor Microenvironment and its Implications for Antitumor Immunity in Cholangiocarcinoma: Future Perspectives for Novel Therapies

“…TAM-mediated inflammatory responses take on a critical significance in tumor transformation and progression, and they have been widely studied 90 . A bioinformatics analysis based on the gene expression omnibus database suggested that activated dendritic cells, M2 macrophages and regulatory T cells (Tregs) were expressed at higher levels in ICC than normal tissues, while M1 macrophages, monocytes, and helper T cells were expressed at lower levels in ICC than in normal tissues 91 . Thus, M2-TAMs has been the most studied macrophage cell type in the CCA tumor microenvironment.…”