Predicting prognosis and immunotherapy response among colorectal cancer patients based on a tumor immune microenvironment-related lncRNA signature

Chuling Hu; Du Cai; Min-Er Zhong; Dejun Fan; Cheng-Hang Li; Min-Yi Lv; Ze-Ping Huang; Wei Wang; Xiao-Jian Wu; Feng Gao

doi:10.3389/fgene.2022.993714

Predicting prognosis and immunotherapy response among colorectal cancer patients based on a tumor immune microenvironment-related lncRNA signature

Front Genet. 2022 Sep 7:13:993714. doi: 10.3389/fgene.2022.993714. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Chuling Hu^{1

2

3}, Du Cai^{1

2

3}, Min-Er Zhong^{1

2

3}, Dejun Fan^{1

2

3

4}, Cheng-Hang Li^{1

2

3}, Min-Yi Lv^{1

2

3}, Ze-Ping Huang^{1

2

3}, Wei Wang⁵, Xiao-Jian Wu^{1

2

3}, Feng Gao^{1

2

3}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Colorectal Surgery, The Sixth Affiliated Hospital, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China.
² Guangdong Institute of Gastroenterology, Guangzhou, China.
³ Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Colorectal and Pelvic Floor Diseases, The Sixth Affiliated Hospital, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China.
⁴ Department of Gastrointestinal Endoscopy, The Sixth Affiliated Hospital, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China.
⁵ Department of Pathology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Anhui Medical University, Hefei, China.

Abstract

Long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) remodel the tumor immune microenvironment (TIME) by regulating the functions of tumor-infiltrating immune cells. It remains uncertain the way that TIME-related lncRNAs (TRLs) influence the prognosis and immunotherapy response of colorectal cancer (CRC). Aiming at providing survival and immunotherapy response predictions, a CRC TIME-related lncRNA signature (TRLs signature) was developed and the related potential regulatory mechanisms were explored with a comprehensive analysis on gene expression profiles from 97 immune cell lines, 61 CRC cell lines and 1807 CRC patients. Stratifying CRC patients with the TRLs signature, prolonged survival was observed in the low-risk group, while the patients in the high-risk group had significantly higher pro-tumor immune cells infiltration and higher immunotherapy response rate. Through the complex TRLs-mRNA regulation network, immunoregulation pathways and immunotherapy response pathways were found to be differently activated between the groups. In conclusion, the CRC TRLs signature is capable of making prognosis and immunotherapy response predictions, which may find application in stratifying patients for immunotherapy in the bedside.

Keywords: colorectal cancer; immunotherapy; long non-coding RNA; tumor immune microenvironment; tumor microenvironment.