J Cancer 2024; 15(3):747-763. doi:10.7150/jca.90515 This issue Cite
Research Paper
1. Department of Hepatobiliary Surgery, Renmin Hospital of Wuhan University, Wuhan, 430060, Hubei Province, People's Republic of China.
2. Central Laboratory, Renmin Hospital of Wuhan University, Wuhan, 430060, Hubei Province, People's Republic of China.
3. Department of General Surgery, Renmin Hospital of Wuhan University, Wuhan, 430060, Hubei Province, People's Republic of China.
#Authors contributed equally to this work.
Background: Immune cells play a critical role in the prognosis of cancer. However, the function of different immune cell types in lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD) and the development of a prognostic signature based on immune cell types have not been comprehensively investigated.
Methods: We collected and included a total of 2499 LUAD patients and performed calculations to determine the penetration level of 24 immune cells. This examination was conducted using the macro-gene-based approach provided by ImmuCellAI. We performed a meta-analysis using Lasso-Cox analysis to establish the immune cell pair score (ICPS). We conducted a survival analysis to measure differences in survival across ICPS-risk groups. Wilcox test was used to measure the difference in expression level. Spearman correlation analysis was used for the relevance assessment.
Results: We collected a total of 24 immune cell types to construct cell pairs. Utilizing 17 immune cell pairs, we constructed and validated the ICPS, which plays a critical role in stratifying survival and dynamically monitoring the effectiveness of immunotherapy. Additionally, we identified several candidate drugs that target ICPS.
Conclusions: The ICPS shows promise as a valuable tool for identifying suitable candidates for immunotherapy among patients. Our comprehensive assessment of immune cell interactions in LUAD contributes to a deeper understanding of infiltration patterns and functions, thereby guiding the development of more efficacious immunotherapy strategies.
Keywords: immune cell, immunotherapy, lung adenocarcinoma, prognosis, tumor microenvironment