Correlative Study on the Relationship between the Expression of m6a-Related Genes and the Prognosis and Immunotherapy of Soft Tissue Sarcoma

Abstract

Background. Soft tissue sarcomas (STS) are rare malignancies arising from mesenchymal tissue and interlacing ectodermal nerve tissue. Immunotherapy plays an important role in the prognosis and survival of STS patients. However, there is insufficient evidence to confirm the prognostic value of m6A-related genes and to evaluate the efficacy of immunotherapy for STS. Methods. We analyzed 23 m6A regulators from STS samples using R software and defined the modification patterns for three STS m6A regulators. Then, we constructed the m6A scores and divided the samples into high and low subgroups. Finally, we used data from the GEO database to verify the results. Results. We found that the m6A clusters differed in the overall survival (OS), progression-free survival (PFS), and immune infiltration rate. Additionally, the m6A score was positively correlated with the contents of activated B cells, activated dendritic cells, CD56 bright natural killer cells, helper T cells, and regulatory T cells. The group with a higher m6A score also presented higher OS and PFS rates. Regarding immunotherapy, STS patients with a high m6A score presented better results. Consistently, we found similar results in another dataset with patients that received anti-PD-1/PD-L1 therapy. Conclusion. Our current results indicated that the m6A score can be used to assess the survival rate of STS patients and guide immunotherapy and predict its effects. The analysis of different m6A patterns of STS samples contributed to the understanding of the diversity and complexity of the tumor microenvironment (TME) and provided new ideas for the clinical development of personalized immunotherapy and prediction of the prognosis of STS patients.

Correlations between the modification patterns mediated by pyroptosis-related genes, tumor microenvironment, and immunotherapy in soft tissue sarcoma

“…Qiu and Bae et al evaluated the expression of immune biomarkers in STS and found that increased CTLA4, PD-1, and LAG3 were connected to a good prognosis. [ 55 , 56 ] This result also indicated that STS patients who respond well to immunotherapy have higher pyroptosis scores, higher levels of immune cell infiltration, and stronger immune surveillance and immune-killing effects on tumor cells, which can explain the results of better OS in STS patients with high pyroptosis scores. Therefore, due to the prognosis prediction and the guidance for the immunotherapy strategy and targeted therapy program, the pyroptosis score might significantly benefit STS patients.…”

Construction of an m6A- and neutrophil extracellular traps-related lncRNA model to predict hepatocellular carcinoma prognosis and immune landscape

“…Studies had demonstrated that the expression of m6A-related genes was closely related to the immune microenvironment of malignant tumors and can guide patient immunotherapy ( 23 ). Meanwhile, m6A genes were mainly enriched in the formation of extracellular traps in neutrophils, suggesting that probing the m6A patterns of tumors can help to understand the diversity and complexity of the tumor microenvironment ( 23 ). It has been shown that models that integrate multiple markers into a single model outperform those constructed using a single marker, facilitating individualized patient management ( 24 ).…”