Mining of clinical and prognosis related genes in the tumor microenvironment of endometrial cancer

Abstract

Abstract Background: Endometrial cancer (EC) is the sixth most common malignant tumor in women worldwide, and its morbidity and mortality are on the rise.The purpose of this study was to explore potential tumor microenvironment (TME) related biomarkers associated with clinical features and prognosis of EC. Methods: Estimating Stromal and Immune Cells in Malignancy Using Expression Data (ESTIMATE) algorithm was used to calculate TME immune score and stromal score of EC samples obtained from The Cancer Genome Atla (TCGA), and analyze the relationship between immune/stromal scores and clinical features and prognosis. Heat map and Venn map were drawn to screen differentially expressed genes (DEGs). Gene Ontology (GO) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) enrichment analysis were performed for differentially expressed intersection genes and Protein–protein interaction (PPI) network was constructed. Kaplan-meier survival analysis and multivariate Cox analysis were used to screen the clinical and prognostic related genes of EC. Results: The immune score was significantly correlated with the overall survival and tumor grade of EC. A total of 1448 DEGs were screened according to immune/stromal scores, of which 387 genes were intersection genes. GO analysis found that the biological processes related to intersection genes mainly included T cell activation and regulation of lymphocyte activation. KEGG analysis showed that intersection genes were closely related to immune-related signaling pathways, especially T cell immunity.30 core genes with more than 7 nodes were identified by PPI. 6 independent prognostic genes of EC were found, namely, CD5, BATF, CACNA2D2, LTA, CD52, and NOL4,which were all immune infiltrating genes and closely related to clinical features. Conclusion:The current study identified 6 key genes closely related to immune infiltration in TME of EC that predict clinical outcome, which may provide new insights into novel prognostic biomarkers and immunotherapy for EC patients.