Construction of immune cell infiltration score model to assess prognostic ability of tumor immune environment in lung adenocarcinoma

Jiahui Tian; Chunyan Fu; Qian Peng; Jialu Yang; Xiaoxiao Fan; Xuan Zeng; Weiguo Qing; Yi Wu

Construction of immune cell infiltration score model to assess prognostic ability of tumor immune environment in lung adenocarcinoma

Am J Transl Res. 2023 Mar 15;15(3):1730-1743. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Jiahui Tian^{1

2}, Chunyan Fu^{1

2}, Qian Peng², Jialu Yang¹, Xiaoxiao Fan¹, Xuan Zeng², Weiguo Qing¹, Yi Wu^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Laboratory, The First Affiliated Hospital of Hunan Normal University Changsha 410005, Hunan, China.
² Department of Medicine, Hunan Normal University Changsha 410005, Hunan, China.

PMID: 37056847
PMCID: PMC10086903

Abstract

Objectives: The immune cell infiltration (ICI) in the tumor microenvironment (TME) can provide a reference for prognosis after immunotherapy. We aim to establish an ICI scoring model and evaluate its predictive ability for the immunotherapy efficacy and the prognosis in lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD) patients.

Methods: We developed and analyzed the landscape of infiltrative immune cells based on the CIBERSORT and ESTIMATE algorithms. Then, three clusters of LUAD patients were discerned from TCGA-LUAD and GSE11969 data. Furthermore, two gene clusters were classified based on the PCA.

Results: LUAD patients with better prognoses tend to have higher immune checkpoint expression and immune/stromal scores. There is a correlation between TMB and ICI, and their relationship deserves further exploration. Moreover, the early-stage and male patients with high ICI scores have more prolonged survival.

Conclusions: The feasibility of the ICI score model in evaluating prognosis after immune checkpoint therapy for LUAD patients was verified, specifically reflected in the screening of sensitive immune checkpoints as a treatment reference. The scoring system can accurately predict the overall survival of LUAD patients, which has clinical value to monitor disease and evaluate prognosis.

Keywords: Lung adenocarcinoma; immune cell infiltration; immunotherapy; prognosis evaluation; tumor microenvironment.