Ye Wenrui, Luo Cong, Li Chenglong, Liu Zhixiong, Liu Fangkun
Department of Neurosurgery, Xiangya Hospital, Central South University, 87 Xiangya Road, Changsha, Hunan, 410008, China.
Department of Urology, Xiangya Hospital, Central South University, 87 Xiangya Road, Changsha, Hunan, 410008, China.
J Cancer. 2021 Sep 9;12(21):6588-6599. doi: 10.7150/jca.63236. eCollection 2021.
CD161 is a promising immune checkpoint mainly expressed on natural killer (NK) cells and is essential for immunoregulatory functions. However, it remains obscure how CD161 correlates with immune infiltration and patient prognosis in pan-cancer. We employed HPA, TCGA, GTEx, TIMER2.0, and GEPIA2 databases as well as R language to analyze and visualize CD161 in cancers. Our twenty-four glioma samples were sequenced for validation. Overall, CD161 was differentially expressed between most paired cancer and normal controls. Higher CD161 expression was associated with poorer overall survival (OS) in the TCGA LGG (HR = 2.18, 95%CI = 1.79-2.66, < 0.001) and UVM (HR = 1.32, 95%CI = 1.05-1.65, = 0.016) cohorts. In these two cancer types, CD161 was significantly correlated with expression levels of recognized immune checkpoints and the abundance of markers of specific immune subsets, including CD8+ T cells, dendric cells (DCs), M2 macrophages, and exhausted T cells (Texs). In addition, CD161 was involved in several immune pathways in LGG and UVM, highlighting its role in regulating immune processes in the context of oncology. CD161 is a potential prognostic biomarker and immunotherapy target in human cancers, especially brain lower grade gliomas.
CD161是一种很有前景的免疫检查点，主要表达于自然杀伤（NK）细胞上，对免疫调节功能至关重要。然而，在泛癌中CD161如何与免疫浸润及患者预后相关仍不清楚。我们利用人类蛋白质图谱（HPA）、癌症基因组图谱（TCGA）、基因型组织表达（GTEx）、肿瘤免疫评估资源2.0（TIMER2.0）和基因表达谱交互分析工具2（GEPIA2）数据库以及R语言来分析和可视化癌症中的CD161。我们对24个胶质瘤样本进行测序以作验证。总体而言，在大多数配对的癌症和正常对照之间，CD161存在差异表达。在TCGA低级别胶质瘤（LGG）队列（风险比[HR]=2.18，95%置信区间[CI]=1.79 - 2.66，P<0.001）和葡萄膜黑色素瘤（UVM）队列（HR = 1.32，95%CI = 1.05 - 1.65，P = 0.016）中，较高的CD161表达与较差的总生存期（OS）相关。在这两种癌症类型中，CD161与公认的免疫检查点的表达水平以及特定免疫亚群标志物的丰度显著相关，这些免疫亚群包括CD8+T细胞、树突状细胞（DC）、M2巨噬细胞和耗竭性T细胞（Tex）。此外，CD161参与了LGG和UVM中的多种免疫途径，突出了其在肿瘤学背景下调节免疫过程中的作用。CD161是人类癌症尤其是脑低级胶质瘤中一种潜在的预后生物标志物和免疫治疗靶点。
