m6A Regulators Is Differently Expressed and Correlated With Immune Response of Esophageal Cancer

Huaying Zhao; Yue Xu; Yilin Xie; Lan Zhang; Ming Gao; Shenglei Li; Feng Wang

doi:10.3389/fcell.2021.650023

m6A Regulators Is Differently Expressed and Correlated With Immune Response of Esophageal Cancer

Front Cell Dev Biol. 2021 Mar 4:9:650023. doi: 10.3389/fcell.2021.650023. eCollection 2021.

Authors

Huaying Zhao¹, Yue Xu¹, Yilin Xie¹, Lan Zhang¹, Ming Gao², Shenglei Li¹, Feng Wang²

Affiliations

¹ Department of Pathology, The First Affiliated Hospital, Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou, China.
² Department of Oncology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou, China.

Abstract

N6 methyladenosine (m6A) RNA methylation regulators play an important role in the development of tumors. However, their function in esophageal cancer (EC) has not been fully elucidated. Here, we analyzed the gene expression data of 24 major m6A RNA methylation regulators from 775 patients with EC from TCGA dataset. The present study showed the aberrations of m6A regulators in genome were correlated to prognosis in human ECs. Meanwhile, 17 m6A regulators showed increased expression in EC samples, including YTHDC1, IGF2BP2, FTO, METTL14, YTHDF3, RBM15, WTAP, HNRNPA2B1, HNRNPC, ALKBH5, YTHDF2, METTL16, IGF2BP3, VIRMA, RBM15B, YTHDF1, KIAA1429, HAKAI, and ZC3H13. Among them, we found HNRNPC, YTHDC2, WTAP, VIRMA, IGF2BP3, and HNRNPA2B1 were significantly correlated to worse outcomes and advanced stage in EC. Furthermore, we showed levels of m6A regulators is correlated with the expression of Immuno-regulators (Immunoinhibitors, Immunostimulators, and MHC molecules) and immune infiltration levels in EC. Bioinformatics further confirm m6A regulators were involved in regulating RNA splicing, RNA stability, and cell proliferation. Our study showed m6A regulators are promising targets and biomarkers for cancer immunotherapy in EC.

Keywords: RNA methylation; TCGA; esophageal cancer; immune infiltration; m6A.