MYC overexpression predicts poor prognosis and correlates with immune infiltration in chronic lymphocytic leukemia

Abstract

Background: Chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) is a highly genetically heterogeneous disease that represents 30% of adult leukemia. We aimed to identify survival-associated key genes in CLL and investigate potential immunotherapy targets.Methods: The survival information and microarray mRNA expression profiles of CLL patients were downloaded from the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) and the International Cancer Genome Consortium (ICGC) database. Hub genes were uncovered in CLL. The bioinformatics technology was applied to identify key genes and performe functional analysis. Finally, we explored the role of this key gene and the situation of immune infiltration in the bone marrow.Results: We uncovered 223 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) as hub genes associated with CLL. MYC was identified as the key gene in CLL. High MYC expression was associated with poor prognosis. The biological pathways such as "Hypoxia", "Myc Targets V2", "P53 pathway" etc, were remarkably linked with MYC high expression phenotype. The expression level of MYC was positively correlated with infiltration levels of Eosinophils and follicular helper T cells, while negatively correlated with infiltration levels of regulatory T cells.Conclusion: Overexpression of MYC predicts poor prognosis and correlates with immune infiltration. MYC could serve as a potential immunotherapeutic target for CLL.