AUTHOR=Zhang Meng , Zhang Jian , Liu Yang 

TITLE=Comprehensive analysis of molecular features, prognostic values, and immune landscape association of m6A-regulated immune-related lncRNAs in smoking-associated lung squamous cell carcinoma

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Genetics

VOLUME=Volume 13 - 2022

YEAR=2022

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/genetics/articles/10.3389/fgene.2022.887477

DOI=10.3389/fgene.2022.887477

ISSN=1664-8021

ABSTRACT=Lung squamous cell carcinoma (LUSC) is the second most common histopathological subtype of lung cancer and smoking is the leading cause of this type of cancer. However, the critical factors that directly affect survival rate and sensitivity to immunotherapy of smoking LUSC patients are still unknown. Previous studies highlighted the role of RNA N6-methyladenosine (m6A) modification and immune-related long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) in promoting the development and processing of tumors. Thus, elucidating m6A-regulated immune lncRNAs in LUSC patients with smoking history is vital. In this study, we described the expression and mutation features of the 24 m6A-related regulators in smoking LUSC cohort from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database. Then, 2 distinct subtypes based on the expression levels of the prognostic m6A-regulated immune lncRNAs were defined and differently expressed genes (DEGs) between the subtypes were identified. The distributions of clinical characteristics and tumor microenvironment (TME) between clusters were analyzed. Finally, we established a lncRNAs-associated risk model and exhaustively clarified the clinical features, prognosis, immune landscape and drug sensitivity on the basis of this scoring system. Our findings give insight into potential mechanisms of LUSC tumorigenesis and development and provide new ideas in offering LUSC patients with individual and effective immunotherapies.