The landscape of tumors-infiltrate immune cells in papillary thyroid carcinoma and its prognostic value

Abstract

Introduction Thyroid cancer is a very common malignant tumor in the endocrine system, while the incidence of papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC) throughout the world also shows a trend of increase year by year. In this study, we constructed two models: ICIscore and Riskscore. Combined with these two models, we can make more accurate and reasonable inferences about the prognosis of PTC patients. Methods We selected 481 PTC samples from TCGA and 147 PTC samples from GEO (49 samples in GSE33630, 65 samples in GSE35570 and 33 samples in GSE60542). We performed consistent clustering for them and divided them into three subgroups and screened differentially expressed genes from these three subgroups. Then we divided the differential genes into three subtypes. We also distinguished the up-regulated and down-regulated genes and calculated ICIscore for each PTC sample. ICIscore consists of two parts: (1) the PCAu was calculated from up-regulated genes. (2) the PCAd was calculated from down-regulated genes. The PCAu and PCAd of each sample were the first principal component of the relevant gene. What’s more, we divided the patients into two groups and constructed mRNA prognostic signatures. Additionally we also verified the independent prognostic value of the signature. Results Though ICIscore, we were able to observe the relationship between immune infiltration and prognosis. The result suggests that the activation of the immune system may have both positive and negative consequences. Though Riskscore, we could make more accurate predictions about the prognosis of patients with PTC. Meanwhile, we also generated and validated the ICIscore group and Riskscore group respectively. Conclusion All the research results show that by combining the two models constructed, ICIscore and Riskscore, we can make a more accurate and reasonable inference about the prognosis of patients with clinical PTC patients. This suggests that we can provide more effective and reasonable treatment plan for clinical PTC patients.