Comprehensive exploration of tumor immune microenvironment feature and therapeutic response in colorectal cancer based on a novel immune-related long non-coding RNA prognostic signature

Xueliang Zhou; Batuer Aikemu; Shuchun Li; Yanfei Shao; Hongtao Jia; Ling Huang; Hiju Hong; Sen Zhang; Qiushi Tang; Ruijun Pan; Jing Sun; Minhua Zheng

doi:10.3389/fgene.2022.962575

Comprehensive exploration of tumor immune microenvironment feature and therapeutic response in colorectal cancer based on a novel immune-related long non-coding RNA prognostic signature

Front Genet. 2022 Aug 25:13:962575. doi: 10.3389/fgene.2022.962575. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Xueliang Zhou^{1

2

3}, Batuer Aikemu^{1

2}, Shuchun Li^{1

2}, Yanfei Shao^{1

2

3}, Hongtao Jia^{1

2

3}, Ling Huang^{1

2

3}, Hiju Hong^{1

2}, Sen Zhang^{1

2

3}, Qiushi Tang⁴, Ruijun Pan^{1

2}, Jing Sun^{1

2}, Minhua Zheng^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Department of General Surgery, Ruijin Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, China.
² Shanghai Minimally Invasive Surgery Center, Ruijin Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, China.
³ Shanghai Institute of Digestive Surgery, Ruijin Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, China.
⁴ Chinese Journal of Practical Surgery, China Medical University, Shenyang, China.

Abstract

Colorectal cancer (CRC) is one of the most common malignant tumors with a high incidence rate and mortality. LncRNA is an important regulator of the immune system. It is of great significance to study immune-related lncRNAs (IR-lncRNAs) for CRC. In this study, we screened IR-lncRNAs differentially expressed in normal and CRC tissues, and Univariate Cox regression and the Least Absolute Shrinkage and Selection Operator were applied to construct IR-lncRNA prognostic signature in TCGA training dataset, and its predictive capability for the prognosis of CRC patients was verified in GSE39582 validation dataset. The novel signature was identified as an independent predictor of prognosis in CRC patients. In addition, the signature could accurately predict the feature of the immune microenvironment and therapeutic response in CRC patients. The CMap database was adopted to screen for small molecule candidate drugs that can reverse and treat high-risk CRC patients. Finally, the expression of six IR-lncRNAs were verified by qRT-PCR in clinical specimens from our patient cohort. In conclusion, we construct an IR-lncRNA prognostic signature, which is a powerful biomarker of CRC and can accurately predict the prognosis, immune microenvironment feature, and therapeutic response of CRC patients.

Keywords: candidate drugs; colorectal cancer; immune signature; long non-coding RNA; prognosis; qRT-PCR; therapeutic response; tumor immune microenvironment.