An Extracellular Matrix-Based Signature Associated With Immune Microenvironment Predicts the Prognosis and Therapeutic Responses of Patients With Oesophageal Squamous Cell Carcinoma

Abstract

Evidence has suggested that the cancer-associated extracellular matrix (ECM) could be recognised as immune-related biomarkers that modulate tumour progression and expansion. However, the ECM-associated immune effect on esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) prognosis and therapy has not been well characterised. In our study, we first constructed an ECM-related signature including four genes CST1, NELL2, ADAMTSL4, and ANGPTL7 by multivariate Cox regression analyses. This signature could serve as a marker to evaluate the prognosis of patients with ESCC and was successfully validated in testing and combined (training plus testing) cohorts. We also found that there were significant different therapeutic responses to chemotherapy and targeted drugs between the high-risk and low-risk groups of patients defined by the signature. Furthermore, the expression of four genes and immune function analysis suggested that this ECM-related signature gene might play important roles in the changes of the tumour microenvironment. In conclusion, our findings demonstrated that the ECM-related signature might serve as an independent prognostic factor and provide a potential biomarker for chemotherapy responses for patients with ESCC.

Extracellular Matrix-Based Gene Expression Signature Defines Two Prognostic Subtypes of Hepatocellular Carcinoma With Different Immune Microenvironment Characteristics

“…Accumulating evidence has suggested that the ECM is associated with tumor aggression, metastasis, treatment sensitivity, and prognosis (Deligne and Midwood, 2021). The ECM was also reported to not only provide a physical barrier, preventing interaction between immune effectors or drugs and tumor cells, but can also modulate immune cell proliferation, differentiation, motility, and activation (Zhang et al, 2021). However, the role of the ECM signature in HCC classification has not been estimated, although a dynamic ECM was associated with HCC carcinogenesis, progression, and prognosis (Jeng et al, 2015).…”

Development and validation of a prognostic model related to pyroptosis-related genes for esophageal squamous cell carcinoma using bioinformatics analysis

“…The prognostic role of the riskscore was confirmed in the validation set, the related results of validation set being similar to those of the training set ( Figure 5D,5F ). Prior study has revealed a signature based on extracellular matrix (ECM) which could also be used to predict the OS of patients with ESCC ( 64 ). Micro(mi)RNAs are non-coding RNAs and are significantly associated with malignant initiation and progression ( 65 ).…”

Genes associated with diagnosis and prognosis of Burkitt lymphoma

“…[ 50 ] showed ADAMTSL4 to be directly linked to poor prognosis in patients with Glioblastoma Multiforme and the expression of ADAMTSL4 to be correlated with immune responses such as infiltration of the tumour by immune cells. Deregulation of ADAMTSL4 has also been reported in nasopharyngeal carcinoma [ 51 ], acute lymphoblastic leukaemia [ 52 ] and oesophageal squamous cell carcinoma [ 53 ]. Low expression of ADAMTS15 was demonstrated to be associated with poor prognosis in breast carcinoma [ 54 ].…”