SECTM1 is upregulated in immuno-hot tumors and predicts immunotherapeutic efficacy in multiple cancers

Jie Mei; Ziyi Fu; Yun Cai; Chenghu Song; Jiaofeng Zhou; Yichao Zhu; Wenjun Mao; Junying Xu; Yongmei Yin

doi:10.1016/j.isci.2023.106027

SECTM1 is upregulated in immuno-hot tumors and predicts immunotherapeutic efficacy in multiple cancers

iScience. 2023 Jan 23;26(2):106027. doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2023.106027. eCollection 2023 Feb 17.

Authors

Jie Mei^{1

2

3}, Ziyi Fu², Yun Cai³, Chenghu Song⁴, Jiaofeng Zhou⁵, Yichao Zhu⁵, Wenjun Mao⁴, Junying Xu¹, Yongmei Yin^{2

6}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Oncology, The Affiliated Wuxi People's Hospital of Nanjing Medical University, No. 299 Qingyang Road, Wuxi 214023, China.
² Department of Oncology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Nanjing Medical University, No. 300 Guangzhou Road, Nanjing 210029, China.
³ Wuxi Clinical College of Nanjing Medical University, No. 299 Qingyang Road, Wuxi 214023, China.
⁴ Department of Thoracic Surgery, Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery, The Affiliated Wuxi People's Hospital of Nanjing Medical University, No. 299 Qingyang Road, Wuxi 214023, China.
⁵ Department of Physiology, Nanjing Medical University, No. 818 Tianyuan East Road, Nanjing 211166, China.
⁶ Jiangsu Key Lab of Cancer Biomarkers, Prevention and Treatment, Collaborative Innovation Center for Personalized Cancer Medicine, Nanjing Medical University, No. 818 Tianyuan East Road, Nanjing 211166, China.

Abstract

Immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) have transformed the management of advanced cancers. However, many patients could not benefit from ICIs therapy, and thus several biomarkers for therapeutic prediction have been uncovered. In this research, more than ten public and in-house cohorts were used to explore the predictive value and immunological correlations of secreted and transmembrane 1 (SECTM1) in cancers. SECTM1 expression was enhanced in tumors from patients with well immunotherapeutic responses in multiple cancers. In addition, SECTM1 was immuno-correlated in pan-cancer and enhanced in immuno-hot tumors. In vitro assays revealed that SECTM1 was upregulated by the IFN-γ/STAT1 signaling. Moreover, analysis of in-house immunotherapy cohorts suggested both tumor-expressed and circulating SECTM1 are promising biomarkers to predict therapeutic responses. Overall, this study reveals that SECTM1 is a biomarker of benefit to ICIs in cancer patients. Further studies including large-scale patients are needed to establish its utilization as a biomarker of benefit to ICIs.

Keywords: Bioinformatic numerical analysis; Bioinformatics; Biological sciences; Genomics.