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Horm Metab Res 2024; 56(03): 197-205
DOI: 10.1055/a-2231-8475
Original Article: Endocrine Care

Characteristics of Ovarian Cancer Immune Cell Invasion and Bioinformatics to Predict the Effect of Immunotherapy

Lingli Yan 
1   Department of Transfusion Medicine, West China Hospital of Sichuan University, Chengdu, China
,
Erxi Fan
2   Department of Ultrasound, Sichuan Provincial People’s Hospital, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, China
,
Bin Tan
1   Department of Transfusion Medicine, West China Hospital of Sichuan University, Chengdu, China
› Author Affiliations Fundings Sichuan Science and Technology Program No.2022NSFSC1513.
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Abstract

Recent studies have confirmed that tumor immune cell infiltration (ICI) is associated with sensitivity of ovarian cancer (OC) immunotherapy and disease progression of OC patients. However, studies related to immune infiltration in OC, has not been elucidated. Two algorithms are used to analyze the OC data in the TCGA and GEO databases. After combining the two data sets, the immune cell content of the sample was estimated by Cell-type Identification By Estimate Relative Subsets of RNA Transcripts (CIBERSORT method). An unsupervised consistent clustering algorithm was used to analyze ICI subtypes and their differentially expressed genes (DEGs). Two subgroups and three ICI gene clusters were identified by unsupervised consensus clustering algorithm. The ICI score was obtained by analyzing the gene characteristics through principal component analysis (PCA). The ICI score ranged from –15.8132 to 18.7211, which was associated with the prognosis of OC patients with immunotherapy. The Toll-like receptor pathway, B-cell receptor pathway, antigen processing and presentation pathway, NK-cell-mediated cytotoxicity pathway, and arginine-proline metabolism pathway were activated in the high ICI score group, suggesting that immune cells in the high ICI score group were activated, thus leading to a better prognosis in this group of patients. Patients with G3–G4 in the high ICI rating group were more sensitive to immunotherapy and had a better prognosis in patients with high tumor mutation burden (TMB). This study suggests that ICI scores can be used as a feasible auxiliary indicator for predicting the prognosis of patients with OC.

Key words

ovarian cancer - immune cell invasion - TCGA - bioinformatics - immunotherapy

Supplementary Material



Publication History

Received: 04 July 2023

Accepted after revision: 05 December 2023

Article published online:
19 January 2024

© 2024. Thieme. All rights reserved.

Georg Thieme Verlag
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