TGFβ1: An Indicator for Tumor Immune Microenvironment of Colon Cancer From a Comprehensive Analysis of TCGA

Jinyan Wang; Jinqiu Wang; Quan Gu; Yan Yang; Yajun Ma; Quan'an Zhang

doi:10.3389/fgene.2021.612011

TGFβ1: An Indicator for Tumor Immune Microenvironment of Colon Cancer From a Comprehensive Analysis of TCGA

Front Genet. 2021 Apr 28:12:612011. doi: 10.3389/fgene.2021.612011. eCollection 2021.

Authors

Jinyan Wang^{1

2}, Jinqiu Wang³, Quan Gu⁴, Yan Yang¹, Yajun Ma¹, Quan'an Zhang¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Oncology, Nanjing Jiangning Hospital, The Affiliated Jiangning Hospital of Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing, China.
² Department of Oncology, The Affiliated Jiangning Hospital of Jiangsu Health Vocational College, Nanjing, China.
³ Department of Oncology, Dafeng People's Hospital, Yancheng, China.
⁴ Department of Oncology, The Affiliated Cancer Hospital of Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing, China.

Abstract

Background: Tumor microenvironment (TME) and tumor-infiltrating immune cells (TICs) greatly participate in the genesis and development of colon cancer (CC). However, there is little research exploring the dynamic modulation of TME.

Methods: We analyzed the proportion of immune/stromal component and TICs in the TME of 473 CC samples and 41 normal samples from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database through ESTIMATE and CIBERSORT algorithms. Correlation analysis was conducted to evaluate the association between immune/stromal component in the TME and clinicopathological characteristics of CC patients. The difference analysis was performed to obtain the differentially expressed genes (DEGs). These DEGs were further analyzed by GO and KEGG enrichment analyses, PPI network, and COX regression analysis. Transforming growth factor β1 (TGFβ1) was finally overlapped from the above analysis. Paired analysis and GSEA were carried out to understand the role of TGFβ1 in colon cancer. The intersection between the difference analysis and correlation analysis was conducted to learn the association between TGFβ1 and TICs.

Results: Our results showed that the immune component in the TME was negatively related with the stages of CC. GO and KEGG enrichment analysis revealed that 1,110 DEGs obtained from the difference analysis were mainly enriched in immune-related activities. The intersection analysis between PPI network and COX regression analysis indicated that TGFβ1 was significantly associated with the communication of genes in the PPI network and the survival of CC patients. In addition, TGFβ1 was up-regulated in the tumor samples and significantly related with poor prognosis of CC patients. Further GSEA suggested that genes in the TGFβ1 up-regulated group were enriched in immune-related activities and the function of TGFβ1 might depend on the communications with TICs, including T cells CD4 naïve and T cells regulatory.

Conclusion: The expression of TGFβ1 might be an indicator for the tumor immune microenvironment of CC and serve as a prognostic factor. Drugs targeting TGFβ1 might be a potential immunotherapy for CC patients in the future.

Keywords: TGFβ1; colon cancer; indicator; tumor immune microenvironment; tumor-infiltrating immune cells.