1. Immune landscape and prognostic immune-related genes in KRAS-mutant colorectal cancer patients.
- Author
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Liu, Jungang, Huang, Xiaoliang, Liu, Haizhou, Wei, Chunyin, Ru, Haiming, Qin, Haiquan, Lai, Hao, Meng, Yongsheng, Wu, Guo, Xie, Weishun, Mo, Xianwei, Johnson, Caroline H., Zhang, Yawei, and Tang, Weizhong
- Subjects
COLORECTAL cancer ,SUPPRESSOR cells ,CANCER patients ,RAS oncogenes ,IMMUNOGLOBULIN M ,T cells - Abstract
Background: KRAS gene is the most common type of mutation reported in colorectal cancer (CRC). KRAS mutation-mediated regulation of immunophenotype and immune pathways in CRC remains to be elucidated.Methods: 535 CRC patients were used to compare the expression of immune-related genes (IRGs) and the abundance of tumor-infiltrating immune cells (TIICs) in the tumor microenvironment between KRAS-mutant and KRAS wild-type CRC patients. An independent dataset included 566 cases of CRC and an in-house RNA sequencing dataset were served as validation sets. An in-house dataset consisting of 335 CRC patients were used to analyze systemic immune and inflammatory state in the presence of KRAS mutation. An immue risk (Imm-R) model consist of IRG and TIICs for prognostic prediction in KRAS-mutant CRC patients was established and validated.Results: NF-κB and T-cell receptor signaling pathways were significantly inhibited in KRAS-mutant CRC patients. Regulatory T cells (Tregs) was increased while macrophage M1 and activated CD4 memory T cell was decreased in KRAS-mutant CRC. Prognosis correlated with enhanced Tregs, macrophage M1 and activated CD4 memory T cell and was validated. Serum levels of hypersensitive C-reactive protein (hs-CRP), CRP, and IgM were significantly decreased in KRAS-mutant compared to KRAS wild-type CRC patients. An immune risk model composed of VGF, RLN3, CT45A1 and TIICs signature classified CRC patients with distinct clinical outcomes.Conclusions: KRAS mutation in CRC was associated with suppressed immune pathways and immune infiltration. The aberrant immune pathways and immune cells help to understand the tumor immune microenvironments in KRAS-mutant CRC patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]- Published
- 2021
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