Integrative Analysis and Validation of a Cancer-associated Fibroblasts Senescence-related Signature for Risk Stratification and Therapeutic Prediction in Esophageal Squamous Cell Carcinoma.
Han Zhang, Kunqiao Hong, Qi Song, Beibei Zhu, Gang Wu, Baoping Yu
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引用次数: 0
Abstract
Cellular senescence is closely associated with cancer development and progression. There is ample evidence that tumor stromal cells, especially cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAFs) undergo senescence in response to various stimuli. However, the possible biological roles and prognostic significance of senescent CAFs in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) remain unexplored. In this study, we found that CAFs exhibited a significantly higher level of cellular senescence than other cell clusters at the single-cell level. Then, we constructed a CAFs senescence-associated risk model with 7 genes (GEM, SLC2A6, CXCL14, STX11, EFHD2, PTX3, and HCK) through Cox regression and LASSO analysis. Kaplan-Meier survival analysis revealed that the risk model was significantly correlated with worse prognosis in training and validation cohorts. Subsequent analysis indicated that the risk model was an independent prognostic factor. In addition, the signature showed a distinct negative correlation with immune cell infiltration and immunotherapy responses. In vitro experiments showed remarkably higher mRNA and protein levels of prognosis-related genes (STX11 and EFHD2) in senescent CAFs than control group, consistent with the bioinformatics analysis results. Moreover, senescent CAFs significantly promoted ESCC cell proliferation and migration as shown by CCK-8 and scratch assays. In conclusion, our study identified a novel CAFs senescence-based classifier that may help predict prognosis of ESCC, and a thorough characterization of the signature could also be helpful in evaluating the response of ESCC to anti-tumor therapies and provide meaningful clinical options for cancer treatment.
期刊介绍:
Journal of Cancer is an open access, peer-reviewed journal with broad scope covering all areas of cancer research, especially novel concepts, new methods, new regimens, new therapeutic agents, and alternative approaches for early detection and intervention of cancer. The Journal is supported by an international editorial board consisting of a distinguished team of cancer researchers. Journal of Cancer aims at rapid publication of high quality results in cancer research while maintaining rigorous peer-review process.