Prognostic value of neutrophil extracellular trap signature in clear cell renal cell carcinoma

Introduction

Clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC) is the most prevalent type of urological carcinoma. Although targeted therapy and immunotherapy are usually employed, they often result in primary and acquired resistance. There is currently a lack of dependable biomarkers that can accurately anticipate the prognosis of ccRCC. Recent research has indicated the critical role of neutrophil extracellular traps (NETs) in the development, metastasis, and immune evasion of cancer. The aim of this study was to explore the value of NETs in the development and prognosis of ccRCC.

Methods

Clinical features and genetic expression information of ccRCC patients were acquired from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA), International Cancer Genome Consortium (ICGC) and E-MTAB-1980 database. NETs-related gene set were obtained from previous studies. A NETs-related gene signature was constructed based on TCGA data and validated using ICGC and E-MTAB-1980 databases. Furthermore, the immune microenvironment and responsiveness to anticancer medications in ccRCC patients with varying levels of NETs risks were investigated.

Results

A total of 31 NET-related genes were differently expressed between normal kidney and ccRCC tissues. 17 out of 31 were significantly associated with overall survival. After LASSO Cox regression analysis, nine NETs-related genes were enrolled to construct the NETs prognosis signature, and all the ccRCC patients from TCGA were divided into low and high risk group. This signature demonstrated excellent performance in predicting the overall survival of TCGA patients as well as the validation ICGC and E-MTAB-1980 patients. Additionally, the NETs signature was significantly correlated with immune infiltration and drug sensitivity.

Conclusions

The NETs signature established by the current study has prognostic significance in ccRCC, and may serve as a useful biomarker for patient stratification and treatment decisions. Further validation and clinical studies are required to fully translate these findings into clinical practice.

Intra-tumoral angiogenesis correlates with immune features and prognosis in glioma

Gliomas are the most common malignant tumor in the brain. As with other tumors, the progression of glioma depends on intra-tumoral angiogenesis. However, the effect of angiogenesis on gliomas is still not fully understood. In this study, we developed an angiogenesis pathway score using Gene Set Variation Analysis (GSAV) in R to assess the status of intra-glioma angiogenesis in The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA), Chinese Glioma Genome Atlas (CGGA mRNAseq_325, CGGA mRNA-array), and GSE16011 datasets. We found that the angiogenesis pathway score not only accurately predicted the prognosis of glioma patients, but also accurately distinguished the malignant phenotype and immune characteristics of gliomas. In addition, as an independent prognostic factor, the score could predict glioma sensitivity to radiotherapy and chemotherapy. In summary, we used the angiogenesis pathway score to reveal the relationship between glioma angiogenesis and the malignant phenotype, immune characteristics, and prognosis of glioma.

Downregulation of miR-196b Promotes Glioma Cell Sensitivity to Temozolomide Chemotherapy and Radiotherapy

Human glioma is the most common type of primary brain tumor. The survival rate of people with a malignant glioma is extremely low, primarily due to a lack of effective treatments. We previously reported that miR-196b expression is upregulated in glioblastoma tissues and overexpression of miR-196b is associated with poor prognosis. miR-196b acts as an oncogene by enhancing cellular proliferation and increasing the expression of E2F1, which plays an important role in the PI3K/AKT signaling pathway. In the present study, we explored the effects of miR-196b expression on glioma cells and characterized the relationship between miR-196b expression and the PI3K/AKT signaling pathway. We found that downregulation of miR-196b decreased the proliferation of U87 and U251 glioma cells. When anti-miR-196b and radiotherapy were used together, cellular proliferation decreased, whereas apoptosis and caspase 3/7activity, an indicator of apoptosis, increased. Meanwhile, downregulation of miR-196b remarkably inhibited glioma cell growth and colony formation when concurrent with temozolomide administration. Further studies demonstrated that neither upregulation nor downregulation of miR-196b markedly changed the protein expression levels of downstream molecules in the PI3K/AKT signaling pathway in cellular experiments. Therefore, whether miR-196b plays a role by activating the PI3K/AKT signaling pathway has not yet been determined. Together, our findings indicate that downregulation of miR-196b increased glioma cell sensitivity to temozolomide chemotherapy and radiotherapy and may be a valuable target when treating malignant gliomas. However, further studies are required to accurately characterize the mechanism by which miR-196b elicits its pivotal role.