Immune microenvironment infiltration landscape and immune-related subtypes in prostate cancer

Wei Wu; Xin'an Wang; Wei Le; Chang Lu; Haopeng Li; Yaru Zhu; Xi Chen; Wenbin An; Chengdang Xu; Qiang Wu; Licheng Wang

doi:10.3389/fimmu.2022.1001297

Immune microenvironment infiltration landscape and immune-related subtypes in prostate cancer

Front Immunol. 2023 Jan 9:13:1001297. doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2022.1001297. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Wei Wu¹, Xin'an Wang¹, Wei Le¹, Chang Lu¹, Haopeng Li¹, Yaru Zhu¹, Xi Chen¹, Wenbin An², Chengdang Xu¹, Qiang Wu¹, Licheng Wang¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Urology, Tongji Hospital, School of Medicine, Tongji University, Shanghai, China.
² Organ Transplantation Clinical Medical Center of Xiamen University, Department of Organ Transplantation, Xiang'an Hospital of Xiamen University, School of Medicine, Xiamen University, Xiamen, Fujian, China.

Abstract

Background: The tumor microenvironment (TME) primarily comprises cancer cells, cancer-infiltrating immune cells, and stromal cells. The tumor cells alter the TME by secreting signaling molecules to induce immune tolerance. The immune cell infiltrating the TME influences the prognosis of patients with cancers. However, immune cell infiltration (ICI) in the TME of patients with prostate cancer (PC) has not yet been studied.

Methods: In this study, we used Cell-type Identification by Estimating Relative Subsets of RNA Transcripts (CIBERSORT) and Estimation of Stromal and Immune cells in Malignant Tumors using Expression data (ESTIMATE) algorithms to identify three ICI clusters based on 1,099 genes associated with ICI in the TME. The patients were classified into three distinct ICI gene clusters based on overlapping differentially expressed genes in ICI clusters. Furthermore, the ICI scores were calculated using principal component analysis.

Results: The results revealed that patients with high ICI scores had poor prognoses and reduced expression of immune-checkpoint genes and immune-related genes. Furthermore, the transforming growth factor-beta (TGF-β) and WNT-β signaling pathways were enriched in the high ICI score subgroup, which suggests that suppression of T cells could contribute to poor prognosis of patients with PC. A positive correlation was observed between the high-ICI-score subgroup and the high tumor mutation burden (TMB) value. Patients with low ICI scores could benefit from immunotherapy, indicating that the ICI score could be used to predict the efficacy of immunotherapeutic response.

Conclusions: In summary, we provide a comprehensive overview of the landscape of ICI in PC, which could aid in designing the strategies for immunotherapy for patients with PC.

Keywords: immune cell infiltration; immune checkpoint; prostate cancer; tumor microenvironment; tumor mutation burden.

Publication types

Review
Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Algorithms
Biological Transport
Genes, Overlapping
Humans
Immune Tolerance
Male
Prostatic Neoplasms* / genetics
Prostatic Neoplasms* / immunology
Prostatic Neoplasms* / therapy
Tumor Microenvironment / genetics

Grants and funding

This study was supported by the Natural Science Foundation of Shanghai Municipal Science and Technology Committee (number 22ZR1456800), Clinical Research Plan of SHDC (number SHDC2020CR3074B), Joint Research Project of New Frontier Technology in Municipal Hospital (number SHDC12019112), Shanghai Natural Science Foundation (number 19ZR1448700), and National Natural Science Foundation (82001610).