Construction of the Novel Immune Risk Scoring System Related to CD8 + T Cells in Uterine Corpus Endometrial Carcinoma

Abstract

Uterine corpus endometrial carcinoma (UCEC) is a gynecological malignant tumor with high incidence and poor prognosis. Although immunotherapy has brought huge survival benefits for some specific patients, the traditional evaluation indicators cannot accurately identify all beneficiaries. To construct a new scoring system to predict patient prognosis and responsiveness of immunotherapy, key genes related to CD8+T cells and prognosis were selected out to develop the novel immune risk score (NIRS). Subsequently, correlations between NIRS and other prognostic features such as clinical characteristics, microsatellite status, immune infiltration and tumor mutation burden were investigated. Five module genes (GPR18, CD48, LCK, LTA, and SLAMF1) were selected to construct NIRS after multiple screening procedures. NIRS is considered as an independent prognostic factor of UCEC. The increase in NIRS is accompanied by decreases in infiltrated immune cells and immune checkpoint expression; thus, indicating a lower sensibility to immune checkpoint inhibitors. Five module genes were considered protective factors and positively linked to the level of CD8+ T cells by single gene multi-omics analyses. In this research, we constructed NIRS as a novel prognostic signature of UCEC. NIRS can not only distinguish patients with different prognoses and immune responsiveness, but also guide their therapeutic regimens.