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Isolation and Flow Cytometric Analysis of Glioma-infiltrating Peripheral Blood Mononuclear Cells
Published on: November 28, 2015
CD74 Correlated With Malignancies and Immune Microenvironment in Gliomas
Shengchao Xu1, Xizhe Li2, Lu Tang2
1Department of Neurosurgery, Xiangya Hospital of Central South University, Changsha, China.
Insights
High expression of Cluster of Differentiation 74 (CD74) in glioma correlates with poor prognosis and increased immune cell infiltration, suggesting CD74 as a potential therapeutic target and prognostic biomarker for glioma patients.
Area of Science:
- Oncology
- Immunology
- Genomics
Background:
- Cluster of differentiation 74 (CD74) plays a role in cancer development and the tumor microenvironment.
- Previous research on CD74's immune cell interactions in cancer is limited.
- This study comprehensively investigates CD74's role in glioma prognosis and its associated immune microenvironment.
Purpose of the Study:
- To explore the prognostic significance of CD74 in glioma.
- To comprehensively analyze the association between CD74 expression and the glioma immune microenvironment.
- To evaluate CD74 as a potential diagnostic and prognostic biomarker for glioma.
Main Methods:
- Utilized TCGA, CGGA, and GEO databases for CD74 expression analysis in 2,399 glioma patients.
- Employed gene set enrichment and variation analyses to characterize immune features.
- Applied ESTIMATE, ssGSEA, TIMER, and CIBERSORT for immune infiltration assessment and Kaplan-Meier for survival analysis.
Main Results:
- CD74 was highly expressed in glioma tissues, particularly in high-grade gliomas, at both transcriptional and translational levels.
- High CD74 expression correlated positively with immune checkpoints, inflammatory cytokines, and immune cell activation.
- Elevated CD74 levels were linked to increased infiltration of macrophages, dendritic cells, and neutrophils, and indicated poor patient prognosis.
Conclusions:
- High CD74 expression in glioma is associated with adverse prognosis and a heightened immune infiltrate.
- CD74 demonstrates potential as a therapeutic target for glioma treatment.
- CD74 may serve as a valuable biomarker for predicting glioma patient outcomes.
Abstract:
Background: Cluster of differentiation 74 (CD74) is found to be highly involved in the development of various types of cancers and could affect the activities of infiltrated cells in the tumor microenvironment. However, these studies only focus on a few types of immune cells. Our study aims to comprehensively explore the role of CD74 in glioma prognosis and immune microenvironment. Methods: A total of 40 glioma specimens were collected in this study. We extracted data from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA), Chinese Glioma Genome Atlas (CGGA), and Gene-Expression Omnibus (GEO) databases to explore the expression pattern of CD74 in gliomas. gene sets enrichment analysis and gene set variation analysis analyses were conducted to characterize the immune features of CD74. ESTIMATE, ssGSEA, Tumor IMmune Estimation Resource, and CIBERSORT algorithms were applied to assess the immune infiltration. Kaplan-Meier analysis was used for survival analysis. Receiver operating characteristic analysis was used to evaluate the predictive accuracy of CD74 in glioma diagnosis and prognosis. Results: A total of 2,399 glioma patients were included in our study. CD74 was highly expressed in glioma tissue compared to normal brain tissue and its expression was significantly higher in the high-grade glioma compared to the lower grade glioma at transcriptional and translational levels. Besides, CD74 was positively associated with immune checkpoints and inflammatory cytokines as well as immune processes including cytokine secretion and leukocyte activation. The high expression of CD74 indicated a high infiltration of immune cells such as macrophages, dendritic cells, and neutrophils. Moreover, patients with high expression of CD74 had poor prognoses. CD74 had moderate predictive accuracy in the diagnosis of glioblastoma and prediction of survival. Conclusions: In conclusion, our study revealed that the high expression of CD74 was associated with poor prognosis and high immune infiltration. CD74 could be used as a potential target for glioma treatment and as a biomarker to predict the prognosis of glioma patients.
