Comprehensive Analysis of a Dendritic Cell Marker Genes Signature to Predict Prognosis and Immunotherapy Response in Lung Adenocarcinoma

Abstract

With the development of immune checkpoints inhibitors (ICIs), immunotherapy has recently taken center stage in cancer treatment. Dendritic cells exert complicated and important functions in antitumor immunity. This study aims to construct a novel dendritic cell marker gene signature (DCMGS) to predict the prognosis and immunotherapy response of lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD). DC marker genes in LUAD were identified by analysis of single-cell RNA sequencing data. 6 genes (G0S2, KLF4, ALDH2, IER3, TXN, CD69) were screened as the most prognosis-related genes for constructing DCMGS on a training cohort from TCGA data set. Patients were divided into high-risk and low-risk groups by DCMGS risk score based on overall survival time. Then, the predictive ability of the risk model was validated in 6 independent cohorts. DCMGS was verified to be an independent prognostic factor in multivariate analysis. Furthermore, we performed pathway enrichment analysis to explore possible biological mechanisms of the powerful predictive ability of DCMGS, and immune cell infiltration landscape and inflammatory activities were exhibited to reflect the immune profile. Notably, we bridged DCMGS with expression of immune checkpoints and TCR/BCR repertoire diversity that can inflect immunotherapy response. Finally, the predictive ability of DCMGS in immunotherapy response was also validated by 2 cohorts that had received immunotherapy. As a result, the patients with lower DCMGS risk scores showed a better prognosis and immunotherapy response. In conclusion, DCMGS was suggested to be a promising prognostic indicator for LUAD and a desirable predictor for immunotherapy response.