APOL6 as a potential biomarker of immuno-correlation and therapeutic prediction in cancer immunotherapy

Abstract

The emergence of immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) has significantly revolutionized the approach to treating advanced cancers. Despite their remarkable efficacy, not all patients exhibit favorable responses to ICI therapy. Hence, more biomarkers for therapeutic prediction need to be discovered. In this study, we utilized public cohorts to investigate the predictive significance and immunological associations of apolipoprotein L6 (APOL6) in cancers. The expression of APOL6 was found to be enhanced in tumors of patients who exhibited strong immunotherapeutic responses across various types of cancer. Furthermore, APOL6 showed immune correlations in pan-cancer and was confirmed by the tissue microarray cohort and in vitro experiments. Overall, this study highlights that APOL6 serves as a beneficial biomarker for immune checkpoint inhibitors in patients with cancer. Additional research involving larger numbers of patients and the underlying mechanism is necessary to determine its effectiveness as a biomarker for predicting the benefits of ICIs.

Keywords: APOL6; biomarker; cancer; immunotherapy; prognosis.