Immune-Active Tumor-Adjacent Tissues Are Associated With Favorable Prognosis in Stage I Lung Squamous Cell Carcinoma

Authors

Lisha Ying
Chunliu Zhang
Alexandre Reuben
Yiping Tian
Jiaoyue Jin
Canming Wang
Jing Bai
Xinyuan Liu
Jianfei Fang
Tingting Feng
Chenyang Xu
Rui Zhu
Minran Huang
Yingqi Lyu
Tingting Lu
Xiaodan Pan
Jianjun Zhang
Dan Su

Publication Date

9-15-2023

Journal

iScience

Abstract

The immunogenomic features of tumor-adjacent lungs (TALs) in stage I lung squamous cell carcinoma (LUSC) are not clear. Multiomics analyses of tumor tissues and paired TALs from 59 stage I LUSC patients were performed. Compared to tumors, TALs exhibited a better-preserved immune contexture indicated by upregulation of immune pathways, increased immune infiltration, and higher expression of immune effector molecules. Notably, TALs had no mutations in PTEN and KEAP1, a lower incidence of human leukocyte antigen (HLA) loss and higher expression of HLA class I genes, major histocompatibility complex (MHC) I chaperones, and interferon (IFN)-γ-associated genes. Digital spatial profiling validated the generally higher immune infiltration in TALs and revealed a higher level of immune heterogeneity in LUSC tumors. Importantly, patients with higher immune infiltration in TALs had significantly longer survival, while high immune heterogeneity was associated with inferior patient survival. Our work can be considered in the selection of patients for adjuvant therapy, especially immunotherapy.

Keywords

Oncology, Immunology, Transcriptomics

Comments

Supplementary Materials

Data Availability Statement

PMID: 37694148