1. Identification of prognostic biomarkers and correlations with immune infiltrates among cGAS-STING in hepatocellular carcinoma
- Author
-
Bingtian Bi, Weian Zeng, Dongtai Chen, Zhenhua Qi, Jingdun Xie, Qiang Li, Wei Xing, and Fang Yan
- Subjects
0301 basic medicine ,Immunology & Inflammation ,cGAS-STING ,Carcinoma, Hepatocellular ,Bioinformatics ,Biophysics ,Datasets as Topic ,Antineoplastic Agents ,Kaplan-Meier Estimate ,Biology ,Biochemistry ,03 medical and health sciences ,0302 clinical medicine ,Immune system ,Lymphocytes, Tumor-Infiltrating ,LYN ,Interferon ,medicine ,Biomarkers, Tumor ,Humans ,RNA-Seq ,MAPK1 ,Molecular Biology ,Diagnostics & Biomarkers ,Research Articles ,Oligonucleotide Array Sequence Analysis ,Innate immune system ,IFI16 ,Kinase ,Liver Neoplasms ,Membrane Proteins ,Cell Biology ,hepatocellular carcinoma ,tumor-infiltrating ,Prognosis ,Nucleotidyltransferases ,Immunity, Innate ,Gene Expression Regulation, Neoplastic ,030104 developmental biology ,Liver ,030220 oncology & carcinogenesis ,Cancer research ,Tyrosine kinase ,medicine.drug ,Signal Transduction - Abstract
The cyclic GMP-AMP synthase-stimulator of interferon genes (cGAS-STING) pathway induces innate immunity by activating the production of inflammatory cytokines and type I interferons. Recently, studies revealed that self-DNA from by-products of chromosome instability and tumors could activate the cGAS-STING pathway, and subsequently promote or inhibit tumor development. However, the prognostic value and correlations with immune infiltrates of the cGAS-STING pathway in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) have not been clarified. In the present study, we used the Molecular Signatures Database, Oncomine, UALCAN, Human Protein Atlas, Kaplan–Meier plotter, LinkedOmics, and Tumor Immune Estimation Resource databases. Overexpression of XRCC5, IRF3, TRIM21, STAT6, DDX41, TBK1, XRCC6, TREX1, PRKDC, and TMEM173 was markedly correlated with clinical stages and pathological grades in HCC. Moreover, higher mRNA expression of XRCC5, XRCC6, and PRKDC was significantly related with shorter overall survival. However, higher mRNA expression of IFI16, STAT6, NLRC3, and TMEM173 was associated with favorable overall survival. Our results suggested that the kinase targets of the cGAS-STING pathway included the SRC family of tyrosine kinases (LCK and LYN), phosphoinositide 3-kinase-related protein kinase (PIKK) family kinases (ATM and ATR), and mitogen-activated protein kinase 1 (MAPK1). Furthermore, we identified significant correlations among the expression of cGAS-STING pathway and infiltration of B cells, CD4+T cells, CD8+ T cells, macrophages, neutrophils, and dendritic cells in HCC. The expression of the cGAS-STING pathway also exhibited strong relationships with diverse immune marker sets in HCC. These findings suggest that cGAS-STING pathway members may be used as prognostic biomarkers and immunotherapeutic targets HCC patients.
- Published
- 2020