Research Paper Volume 16, Issue 14 pp 11224—11247
Pan-cancer analysis of T-cell proliferation regulatory genes as potential immunotherapeutic targets
- 1 Department of Rehabilitation Medicine, The First Affiliated Hospital of Guangxi Medical University, Nanning, Guangxi 530021, China
- 2 Department of Orthopedic and Trauma Surgery, The First Affiliated Hospital of Guangxi Medical University, Nanning, Guangxi 530021, China
- 3 Department of Cardiology, The Affiliated Cardiovascular Hospital of Kunming Medical University (Fuwai Yunnan Cardiovascular Hospital), Kunming, Yunnan 650000, China
- 4 Department of Rehabilitation Medicine, The Eighth Affiliated Hospital of Guangxi Medical University, Guigang, Guangxi 537100, China
- 5 Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Almerìa, Carretera de Sacramento, Almeria 04120, Spain
Received: November 27, 2023 Accepted: May 3, 2024 Published: June 29, 2024
https://doi.org/10.18632/aging.205977How to Cite
Copyright: © 2024 Wei et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Abstract
T cells are the key to killing tumor cells. However, the exact mechanism of their role in cancer is not fully understood. Therefore, a comprehensive understanding of the role of T-cell proliferation regulatory genes in tumors is needed. In our study, we investigated the expression levels of genes controlling T-cell proliferation, their impact on prognosis, and their genetic variations. Additionally, we explored their associations with TMB, MSI, ESTIMATEScore, ImmuneScore, StromalScore, and immune cell infiltration. We examined the role of these genes in cancer-related pathways using GSEA. Furthermore, we calculated their activity levels across various types of cancer. Drug analysis was also conducted targeting these genes. Single-cell analysis, LASSO Cox model construction, and prognosis analysis were performed. We observed distinct expression patterns of T-cell proliferation regulatory genes across different malignant tumors. Their abnormal expression may be caused by CNA and DNA methylation. In certain cancers, they also showed complex associations with TMB and MSI. Moreover, in many tumors, they exhibited significant positive correlations with ESTIMATEScores, ImmuneScore, and StromalScore. Additionally, in most tumors, their GSVA scores were significantly positively correlated with various T-cell subtypes. GSEA analysis revealed their involvement in multiple immune pathways. Furthermore, we found that model scores were associated with patient prognosis and related to tumor malignancy progression. T-cell proliferation regulatory genes are closely associated with the tumor immune microenvironment (TIM), especially T cells. Targeting them may be an essential approach for cancer immunotherapy.