Correlation Between Prognostic Biomarker SLC1A5 and Immune Infiltrates in Various Types of Cancers Including Hepatocellular Carcinoma

Junsheng Zhao; Zhongli Yang; Mingmin Tu; Wei Meng; Hainv Gao; Ming D Li; Lanjuan Li

doi:10.3389/fonc.2021.608641

Correlation Between Prognostic Biomarker SLC1A5 and Immune Infiltrates in Various Types of Cancers Including Hepatocellular Carcinoma

Front Oncol. 2021 Jul 22:11:608641. doi: 10.3389/fonc.2021.608641. eCollection 2021.

Authors

Junsheng Zhao¹, Zhongli Yang¹, Mingmin Tu², Wei Meng³, Hainv Gao⁴, Ming D Li^{1

5}, Lanjuan Li¹

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory for Diagnosis and Treatment of Infectious Diseases, National Clinical Research Center for Infectious Diseases, Collaborative Innovation Center for Diagnosis and Treatment of Infectious Diseases, The First Affiliated Hospital, Zhejiang University School of Medicine, Hangzhou, China.
² Department of Clinical Laboratory, Hangzhou Tongchuang Medical Laboratory, Hangzhou, China.
³ Department of Clinical Laboratory, Zoucheng People's Hospital, Zoucheng, China.
⁴ Department of Infectious Diseases, ShuLan (Hangzhou) Hospital Affiliated to Zhejiang Shuren University Shulan International Medical College, Hangzhou, China.
⁵ Research Center for Air Pollution and Health, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China.

Abstract

Background: Solute carrier family 1 member 5 (SLC1A5) is a major glutamine transporter and plays a key role in tumor growth. The main objectives of this study were to visualize the prognostic landscape of SLC1A5 in multiple cancers and determine the relations between SLC1A5 expression and tumor immunity.

Methods: SLC1A5 expression and its effect on tumor prognosis were analyzed using multiple online tools Oncomine, Gene Expression Profiling Interactive Analysis, PrognoScan, and Kaplan-Meier plotter with their own datasets as well as the data from The Cancer Genome Atlas. The correlations between SLC1A5 and tumor immune infiltrates were determined via TIMER.

Results: SLC1A5 expression was significantly higher in several types of cancers, including hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), compared with corresponding normal tissues. High SLC1A5 expression correlated with poor overall survival and with disease-free survival related to alcohol consumption. Moreover, SLC1A5 expression correlated positively with the numbers of tumor-infiltrating B cells, CD4⁺ T and CD8⁺ T cells, macrophages, neutrophils, and dendritic cells in HCC and in lower-grade glioma (LGG). Also, SLC1A5 expression showed strong correlations with diverse immune marker sets in HCC and LGG, indicating its role in regulating tumor immunity.

Conclusions: SLC1A5 represents a useful prognostic biomarker in multiple cancers, and its expression correlates highly with tumor immune-cell infiltration, especially in HCC and LGG.

Keywords: SLC1A5; glutamine; hepatocellular carcinoma; immune cell infiltration; lower-grade glioma; prognosis determination.