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Li SW, Han LF, He Y, Wang XS. Immunological classification of hepatitis B virus-positive hepatocellular carcinoma by transcriptome analysis. World J Hepatol 2022; 14:1997-2011. [PMID: 36618328 PMCID: PMC9813842 DOI: 10.4254/wjh.v14.i12.1997] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/05/2022] [Revised: 10/12/2022] [Accepted: 11/23/2022] [Indexed: 12/23/2022] Open
Abstract
BACKGROUND Hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection is a major factor responsible for HBV+ hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC).
AIM An immunological classification of HBV+ HCC may provide both biological insights and clinical implications for this disease.
METHODS Based on the enrichment of 23 immune signatures, we identified two immune-specific subtypes (Imm-H and Imm-L) of HBV+ HCC by unsupervised clustering. We showed that this subtyping method was reproducible and predictable by analyzing three different datasets.
RESULTS Compared to Imm-L, Imm-H displayed stronger immunity, more stromal components, lower tumor purity, lower stemness and intratumor heterogeneity, lower-level copy number alterations, higher global methylation level, and better overall and disease-free survival prognosis. Besides immune-related pathways, stromal pathways (ECM receptor interaction, focal adhesion, and regulation of actin cytoskeleton) and neuro-related pathways (neuroactive ligand-receptor interaction, and prion diseases) were more highly enriched in Imm-H than in Imm-L. We identified nine proteins differentially expressed between Imm-H and Imm-L, of which MYH11, PDCD4, Dvl3, and Syk were upregulated in Imm-H, while PCNA, Acetyl-a-Tubulin-Lys40, ER-α_pS118, Cyclin E2, and β-Catenin were upregulated in Imm-L.
CONCLUSION Our data suggest that “hot” tumors have a better prognosis than “cold” tumors in HBV+ HCC and that “hot” tumors respond better to immunotherapy.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sheng-Wei Li
- Basic Medicine and Clinical Pharmacy, China Pharmaceutical University, Nanjing 211198, Jiangsu Province, China
| | - Li-Fan Han
- Basic Medicine and Clinical Pharmacy, China Pharmaceutical University, Nanjing 211198, Jiangsu Province, China
| | - Yin He
- Basic Medicine and Clinical Pharmacy, China Pharmaceutical University, Nanjing 211198, Jiangsu Province, China
| | - Xiao-Sheng Wang
- Basic Medicine and Clinical Pharmacy, China Pharmaceutical University, Nanjing 211198, Jiangsu Province, China
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Abstract
Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), the primary malignancy of hepatocytes, is a diagnosis with bleak outcome. According to National Cancer Institute's SEER database, the average five-year survival rate of HCC patients in the US is 19.6% but can be as low as 2.5% for advanced, metastatic disease. When diagnosed at early stages, it is treatable with locoregional treatments including surgical resection, Radio-Frequency Ablation, Trans-Arterial Chemoembolization or liver transplantation. However, HCC is usually diagnosed at advanced stages when the tumor is unresectable, making these treatments ineffective. In such instances, systemic therapy with tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) becomes the only viable option, even though it benefits only 30% of patients, provides only a modest (~3months) increase in overall survival and causes drug resistance within 6months. HCC, like many other cancers, is highly heterogeneous making a one-size fits all option problematic. The selection of liver transplantation, locoregional treatment, TKIs or immune checkpoint inhibitors as a treatment strategy depends on the disease stage and underlying condition(s). Additionally, patients with similar disease phenotype can have different molecular etiology making treatment responses different. Stratification of patients at the molecular level would facilitate development of the most effective treatment option. With the increase in efficiency and affordability of "omics"-level analysis, considerable effort has been expended in classifying HCC at the molecular, metabolic and immunologic levels. This review examines the results of these efforts and the ways they can be leveraged to develop targeted treatment options for HCC.
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Affiliation(s)
- Saranya Chidambaranathan-Reghupaty
- C. Kenneth and Dianne Wright Center for Clinical and Translational Research, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA, United States
| | - Paul B Fisher
- Department of Human and Molecular Genetics, Virginia Commonwealth University, School of Medicine, Richmond, VA, United States; VCU Institute of Molecular Medicine, Virginia Commonwealth University, School of Medicine, Richmond, VA, United States; VCU Massey Cancer Center, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA, United States
| | - Devanand Sarkar
- Department of Human and Molecular Genetics, Virginia Commonwealth University, School of Medicine, Richmond, VA, United States; VCU Institute of Molecular Medicine, Virginia Commonwealth University, School of Medicine, Richmond, VA, United States; VCU Massey Cancer Center, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA, United States.
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Abstract
Background Gliomas are heterogeneous in the tumor immune microenvironment (TIM). However, a classification of gliomas based on immunogenomic profiling remains lacking. Methods We hierarchically clustered gliomas based on the enrichment levels of 28 immune cells in the TIM in five datasets and obtained three clusters: immunity-high, immunity-medium, and immunity-low. Results Glioblastomas were mainly distributed in immunity-high and immunity-medium, while lower-grade gliomas were distributed in all the three subtypes and predominated in immunity-low. Immunity-low displayed a better survival than other subtypes, indicating a negative correlation between immune infiltration and survival prognosis in gliomas. IDH mutations had a negative correlation with glioma immunity. Immunity-high had higher tumor stemness and epithelial-mesenchymal transition scores and included more high-grade tumors than immunity-low, suggesting that elevated immunity is associated with tumor progression in gliomas. Immunity-high had higher tumor mutation burden and more frequent somatic copy number alterations, suggesting a positive association between tumor immunity and genomic instability in gliomas. Conclusions The identification of immune-specific glioma subtypes has potential clinical implications for the immunotherapy of gliomas. Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12974-020-02030-w.
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Affiliation(s)
- Qiushi Feng
- Biomedical Informatics Research Lab, School of Basic Medicine and Clinical Pharmacy, China Pharmaceutical University, Nanjing, 211198, China.,Cancer Genomics Research Center, School of Basic Medicine and Clinical Pharmacy, China Pharmaceutical University, Nanjing, 211198, China.,Big Data Research Institute, China Pharmaceutical University, Nanjing, 211198, China
| | - Lin Li
- Biomedical Informatics Research Lab, School of Basic Medicine and Clinical Pharmacy, China Pharmaceutical University, Nanjing, 211198, China.,Cancer Genomics Research Center, School of Basic Medicine and Clinical Pharmacy, China Pharmaceutical University, Nanjing, 211198, China.,Big Data Research Institute, China Pharmaceutical University, Nanjing, 211198, China
| | - Mengyuan Li
- Biomedical Informatics Research Lab, School of Basic Medicine and Clinical Pharmacy, China Pharmaceutical University, Nanjing, 211198, China.,Cancer Genomics Research Center, School of Basic Medicine and Clinical Pharmacy, China Pharmaceutical University, Nanjing, 211198, China.,Big Data Research Institute, China Pharmaceutical University, Nanjing, 211198, China
| | - Xiaosheng Wang
- Biomedical Informatics Research Lab, School of Basic Medicine and Clinical Pharmacy, China Pharmaceutical University, Nanjing, 211198, China. .,Cancer Genomics Research Center, School of Basic Medicine and Clinical Pharmacy, China Pharmaceutical University, Nanjing, 211198, China. .,Big Data Research Institute, China Pharmaceutical University, Nanjing, 211198, China.
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Kawashima A, Kanazawa T, Goto K, Matsumoto M, Morimoto-Okazawa A, Iwahori K, Ujike T, Nagahara A, Fujita K, Uemura M, Nonomura N, Wada H. Immunological classification of renal cell carcinoma patients based on phenotypic analysis of immune check-point molecules. Cancer Immunol Immunother 2018; 67:113-125. [PMID: 28975380 PMCID: PMC11028191 DOI: 10.1007/s00262-017-2060-5] [Citation(s) in RCA: 16] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/03/2017] [Accepted: 09/03/2017] [Indexed: 12/30/2022]
Abstract
OBJECTIVES To clarify comprehensive immunological signature patterns of tumour tissue-infiltrating lymphocytes in patients with renal cell carcinoma and show its clinical significance. MATERIALS AND METHODS We investigated the surface marker expressions of tumour tissue-infiltrating lymphocytes quantitatively and classified them based on their functional populations. We extracted 109 sets of tumour tissue-infiltrating lymphocytes from 80 patients who underwent surgical resection of renal cell carcinoma, of which 44 tumour tissue-infiltrating lymphocytes were multiply extracted from 15 patients. Each tumour tissue-infiltrating lymphocyte was characterised on the basis of functional T-cell populations using ten surface marker expressions measured by flow cytometry. RESULTS All sets of the tumour tissue-infiltrating lymphocytes were classified into three groups, which correlated significantly with Fuhrman grade (OR 0.253, 95% CI 0.094-0.678, P = 0.006). Importantly, both overall metastasis-free survival (HR 0.449, 95% CI 0.243-0.832, P = 0.011) and recurrence-free survival (HR 0.475, 95% CI 0.238-0.948, P = 0.035) of the patients with the higher marker expressions were significantly inferior to those of the patients with the lower marker expressions by multivariate analysis. Six specific genes for this classification identified by microarray analysis verified our results using the TCGA KIRC data set. In addition, we discovered the presence of intra-tumoural diversity in the classification of 3 (20%) of the 15 patients. CONCLUSIONS This study showed that the presence of classable diversity in the immunological signature of tumour tissue-infiltrating lymphocytes correlated with prognosis and tumour aggressiveness that was observed even within individual tumours in some patients with renal cell carcinoma.
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Affiliation(s)
- Atsunari Kawashima
- Department of Urology, Graduate School of Medicine, Osaka University, 2-2 Yamadaoka, Suita, Osaka, 565-0871, Japan.
- Department of Clinical Research in Tumour Immunology, Graduate School of Medicine, Osaka University, Suita, Osaka, Japan.
| | - Takayuki Kanazawa
- Department of Clinical Research in Tumour Immunology, Graduate School of Medicine, Osaka University, Suita, Osaka, Japan.
- Drug Discovery & Disease Research Laboratory, Shionogi & Co., Ltd., Toyonaka, Osaka, Japan.
| | - Kumiko Goto
- Department of Clinical Research in Tumour Immunology, Graduate School of Medicine, Osaka University, Suita, Osaka, Japan
- Drug Discovery & Disease Research Laboratory, Shionogi & Co., Ltd., Toyonaka, Osaka, Japan
| | - Mitsunobu Matsumoto
- Department of Clinical Research in Tumour Immunology, Graduate School of Medicine, Osaka University, Suita, Osaka, Japan
- Drug Discovery & Disease Research Laboratory, Shionogi & Co., Ltd., Toyonaka, Osaka, Japan
| | - Akiko Morimoto-Okazawa
- Department of Clinical Research in Tumour Immunology, Graduate School of Medicine, Osaka University, Suita, Osaka, Japan
| | - Kota Iwahori
- Department of Clinical Research in Tumour Immunology, Graduate School of Medicine, Osaka University, Suita, Osaka, Japan
| | - Takeshi Ujike
- Department of Urology, Graduate School of Medicine, Osaka University, 2-2 Yamadaoka, Suita, Osaka, 565-0871, Japan
| | - Akira Nagahara
- Department of Urology, Graduate School of Medicine, Osaka University, 2-2 Yamadaoka, Suita, Osaka, 565-0871, Japan
| | - Kazutoshi Fujita
- Department of Urology, Graduate School of Medicine, Osaka University, 2-2 Yamadaoka, Suita, Osaka, 565-0871, Japan
| | - Motohide Uemura
- Department of Urology, Graduate School of Medicine, Osaka University, 2-2 Yamadaoka, Suita, Osaka, 565-0871, Japan
| | - Norio Nonomura
- Department of Urology, Graduate School of Medicine, Osaka University, 2-2 Yamadaoka, Suita, Osaka, 565-0871, Japan
| | - Hisashi Wada
- Department of Clinical Research in Tumour Immunology, Graduate School of Medicine, Osaka University, Suita, Osaka, Japan
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