Abstract 111P
Background
Immunotherapy plays an important role in the treatment of head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSC), but only some patients are suitable for immunotherapy, which is mainly related to the tumor microenvironment. Current studies have found that gene fusion is related to tumor microenvironment. In this study, we explored the relationship between TFB and HPV infection status and HNSC tumor microenvironment.
Methods
Applying multiple RNA-Seq fusion callers to collect gene fusion data from published literature on TCGA cohorts，then the fusion gene events are selected from the gene fusion data. Finally, we screened 217 cases in the high TFB group and 289 cases in the low TFB group，and the patients were divided into HPV(+) and HPV(-) groups according to the status of HPV infection.The abundance of various immune cell types was calculated by GSEA. Fisher precise test was used to compare the expression levels of high TFB and low TFB in HPV (-) hNSC cohort of various immune markers and immune checkpoint suppressor molecules.
Results
The ssGSEA analysis revealed that in the HNSC and HPV (-) HNSC cohorts, patients of TFB low group displayed an increased immune cell infiltration compared with TFB high group, Meanwhile, there was no significant difference in the immune cell infiltration between TFB low and TFB high groups in the HPV (+) HNSC cohort. In addition, compared with the HPV (-) HNSC cohort, the HPV (+) HNSC cohort showed higher immune cell infiltration. In the HPV (-) HNSC cohort, immune characteristics and immune checkpoint inhibitor molecules were more expressed in patients with low TFB. In the HNSC cohort of HNSC and HPV (-) cohort,patients with low TFB expressed increased enrichment of MHC class-I, chemokines, CYT and IFN-γ-related features. From the above results, we can see that patients in the HPV (-) hNSC cohort with low TFB had more immune cell infiltration than patients with high TFB and were more likely to benefit from immunotherapy.
Conclusions
As a biomarker closely related to tumor immunogenicity, TFB can predict the prognosis of HNSC patients and the clinical response to immunotherapy.
Clinical trial identification
Editorial acknowledgement
Legal entity responsible for the study
The authors.
Funding
Has not received any funding.
Disclosure
All authors have declared no conflicts of interest.