Song Dingli, Zhou Zhenyu, Wu Jie, Wei Tao, Zhao Guang, Ren Hong, Zhang Boxiang
Department of Thoracic Surgery, The First Affiliated Hospital of Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an, China.
Department of Hepatobiliary Surgery, Sun Yat-Sen Memorial Hospital, Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou, China.
Front Oncol. 2022 Aug 26;12:877817. doi: 10.3389/fonc.2022.877817. eCollection 2022.
Increasing evidence showed that the dysregulation of DNA methylation regulators is a decisive feature of almost all cancer types and affects tumor progressions. However, few studies focused on the underlying influences of DNA methylation regulators-related genes (DMRegs) in immune cell-infiltration characteristics, tumor microenvironment (TME) and immunotherapy in HCC patients. In our study, the alterations of DNA methylation regulators modification patterns (DMRPs) were clustered from hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) samples based on the expression of DNA methylation regulators as well as genetic and transcriptional features. In addition, based on molecular identification of three distinct molecular subtypes, we found that different DMRPs alterations were related to different clinicopathological characteristics, prognosis, and immune cells infiltration features. Moreover, we constructed and validated a DNA methylation regulators-related genes score (DMRegs_score) to predict the survival of HCC patients. A high DMRegs _score, which was characterized by more TP53 wild mutation, high expression of PD-1, CTLA-4, and remarkable immunity activation, was indicative of poor prognosis. Furthermore, we validated the expression of eight genes which were used for the prognostic signature in this risk score by RT-qPCR using tissues from our center. More importantly, DMRegs_score was highly correlated with targeted drug sensitivity. Additionally, we developed a highly accurate scoring system that could be used to improve the clinical applicability of DMRegs _score. In conclusion, these findings may contribute to a better understanding of DNA methylation regulators and provide new strategies for evaluating prognosis and developing more effective combination therapy for HCC patients.
越来越多的证据表明,DNA甲基化调节因子的失调是几乎所有癌症类型的决定性特征,并影响肿瘤进展。然而,很少有研究关注DNA甲基化调节因子相关基因(DMRegs)对肝癌患者免疫细胞浸润特征、肿瘤微环境(TME)和免疫治疗的潜在影响。在我们的研究中,基于DNA甲基化调节因子的表达以及基因和转录特征,从肝细胞癌(HCC)样本中聚类出DNA甲基化调节因子修饰模式(DMRPs)的改变。此外,基于对三种不同分子亚型的分子鉴定,我们发现不同的DMRPs改变与不同的临床病理特征、预后和免疫细胞浸润特征相关。此外,我们构建并验证了一个DNA甲基化调节因子相关基因评分(DMRegs_score)来预测HCC患者的生存情况。高DMRegs_score以更多的TP53野生型突变、PD-1和CTLA-4的高表达以及显著的免疫激活为特征,预示着预后不良。此外,我们使用来自我们中心的组织通过RT-qPCR验证了用于该风险评分预后特征的八个基因的表达。更重要的是,DMRegs_score与靶向药物敏感性高度相关。此外,我们开发了一个高度准确的评分系统,可用于提高DMRegs_score的临床适用性。总之,这些发现可能有助于更好地理解DNA甲基化调节因子,并为评估HCC患者的预后和开发更有效的联合治疗提供新策略。