Journal of Inflammation Research (Jan 2022)

Tumor-Infiltrating CD4+ Central Memory T Cells Correlated with Favorable Prognosis in Oral Squamous Cell Carcinoma

  • Wu J,
  • Zhang T,
  • Xiong H,
  • Zeng L,
  • Wang Z,
  • Peng Y,
  • Chen W,
  • Hu X,
  • Su T

Journal volume & issue
Vol. Volume 15
pp. 141 – 152

Abstract

Read online

Jin Wu,1– 3,* Tianyi Zhang,1– 3,* Haofeng Xiong,1– 4 Liujun Zeng,1– 3 Zijia Wang,1– 3 Ying Peng,1– 3 Weijun Chen,1– 3 Xin Hu,1– 3 Tong Su1– 3 1Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, Center of Stomatology, Xiangya Hospital of Central South University, Changsha, Hunan, 410008, People’s Republic of China; 2Research Center of Oral and Maxillofacial Tumor, Xiangya Hospital of Central South University, Changsha, Hunan, 410008, People’s Republic of China; 3Institute of Oral Cancer and Precancerous Lesions, Central South University, Changsha, Hunan, 410008, People’s Republic of China; 4Center for Medical Genetics & Hunan Key Laboratory of Medical Genetics, School of Life Sciences, Central South University, Changsha, Hunan, 410008, People’s Republic of China*These authors contributed equally to this workCorrespondence: Tong Su; Xin HuCenter Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, of Stomatology, Xiangya Hospital of Central South University, No. 87 Xiangya Road, Changsha, Hunan, 410008, People’s Republic of ChinaEmail [email protected]; [email protected]: Oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) is the most frequent oral malignancy with a poor prognosis, in which tumor-infiltrating immune cells may play a critical role. Therefore, our study aims to screen potential immune cells and immune-related genes for predicting OSCC prognosis.Methods: A total of 310 OSCC patients with full transcriptional data and clinical characteristics were extracted from the TCGA database. Then, we obtained their abundance of tumor-infiltrating immune cells on TIMER 2.0 and analyzed them using xCell method. Univariate and multivariate Cox regressions were applied successively to identify the immune cells associated with overall survival of OSCC patients. Furthermore, we screened the prognostic genes that related to the identified immune cells and validated their expressions by immunohistochemistry.Results: CD4+ central memory T (TCM) cell was recognized as the sole independent immune cell correlated with OSCC prognosis (p = 0.0085). A novel nomogram based on CD4+ TCM cell abundance was established for predicting the prognosis of OSCC patients, with calibration plots showing good performance for 1-, 3-, 5-year overall survival. Thirty-four related prognostic genes were screened according to the differential abundance of CD4+ TCM cell infiltration. In immunohistochemistry analysis, DEFB1 showed a significant positive relationship with the density of CD4+ TCM cells (p = 0.0075).Conclusion: CD4+ central memory T cell was proposed as an independent prognostic biomarker for OSCC patients. DEFB1 might positively regulate the abundance of tumor-infiltrating CD4+ TCM cells, thus improving OSCC prognosis. Our findings may provide a new insight into better prognosis prediction and precise medicine for OSCC.Keywords: oral squamous cell carcinoma, CD4+ central memory T cell, DEFB1, prognosis biomarker

Keywords