ADAR1 is a prognostic biomarker and is correlated with immune infiltration in lung adenocarcinoma

Lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD) is a common subtype of non-small cell lung cancer with high morbidity and mortality rates and is usually detected at advanced stages because of the early onset of metastasis. Adenosine deaminase RNA-specific 1 (ADAR1) is an RNA editing enzyme that catalyzes the important physiological process of adenosine-to-inosine editing and has been shown to participate in the progression of LUAD. Increasing evidence has suggested that immune infiltration of the tumor immune microenvironment has prognostic value for most human solid organ malignancies; however, much is unknown about the functions of ADAR1.

The expression of ADAR1 was analyzed in The Cancer Genome Atlas -LUAD database and validated in our LUAD cohort. To assess the prognostic value of ADAR1, Kaplan-Meier survival analyses and Cox regression analyses were carried out in LUAD cohorts. The association between ADAR1 and LUAD immune infiltrates via analyses of cell-type identification by estimating relative subsets of known RNA transcripts. Furthermore, multiplex immunohistochemistry was used to confirm the relationship between ADAR1 expression and immune cells in the present cohort of patients with LUAD.

ADAR1 was highly expressed in LUAD tissues and closely correlated with lymph node metastasis (LNM) (p < 0.01), advanced tumor stage (p < 0.05), and poor patient prognosis (p < 0.01), thus indicating that increased ADAR1 contributed to the progression of LUAD. LUAD with high ADAR1 expression can metastasize to lymph nodes that express more ADAR1 than the primary lesion. In addition, M0 macrophages and M2 macrophages increased and CD4⁺ T cells decreased in LUAD tissues with high ADAR1 expression. And the expression of ADAR1 in lymph node metastases was negatively correlated with the contents of CD4⁺ T cells (p = 0.0017) and M1 macrophages (p = 0.0037).

The findings of our study suggested that ADAR1 may be useful in predicting prognosis and LNM in LUAD, and may serve as a promising immune-related molecular target for LUAD patients.