AUTHOR=Li Hailin , Han Guangyu , Li Xing , Li Bowen , Wu Bo , Jin Hongyuan , Wu Lingli , Wang Wei 

TITLE=MAPK-RAP1A Signaling Enriched in Hepatocellular Carcinoma Is Associated With Favorable Tumor-Infiltrating Immune Cells and Clinical Prognosis

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Oncology

VOLUME=Volume 11 - 2021

YEAR=2021

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/oncology/articles/10.3389/fonc.2021.649980

DOI=10.3389/fonc.2021.649980

ISSN=2234-943X

ABSTRACT=Background: BMAPK-RAP1A signaling is involved in cancer progression remain to be defined. Upregulation of MAPK-RAP1A signaling accounts for almost cancers that harbor high incident rate, such as non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and pancreatic cancer, especially in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). MAPK-RAP1A signaling is important function as clinical diagnosis and prognostic value in cancers, and the role of MAPK-RAP1A signaling related with immune infiltration for HCC should be elucidated. Methods: Microarray data and patient cohort information from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA; n = 425) and International Cancer Genome Consortium (ICGC; n = 405) were selected to validated. The Cox regression and least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) were used to construct a clinical prognostic model in this analysis and validation study. We also tested the area under the curve (AUC) of the risk signature could reflect the status of predictive power by determining model. MAPK-RAP1A signaling is also associated with tumor-infiltrating immune cells (TICs) as well as clinical parameters in HCC. The GSEA and CIBERSORT was used to calculate the proportion of TICs, which should be beneficial for the clinical characteristics (clinical stage, distant metastasis) and positively correlated with the survival of HCC patients. Results: HCC patients with enrichment of MAPK-RAP1A signaling were associated with clinical characteristics and favorable T cell gamma delta (Vδ T cells), and identify STMN1, RAP1A, FLT3, HSPA8, ANGPT2 and PGF was used to as candidate biomarkers for risk scores of HCC. To determine the molecular mechanism of this signature gene association, Gene Set Enrichment Analysis (GSEA) was proposed. Cytokine-cytokine receptor interaction, TGF-β signaling pathway and Intestinal immune network for IgA production gene sets were closed related in MAPK-RAP1A gene sets. Thus, we established a novel prognostic prediction of HCC, and deepens learning of MAPK-RAP1A signaling pathways. Conclusion: Our founding demonstrated that HCC patients with enrichment of MAPK-RAP1A signaling were associated with clinical characteristics and favorable T cell gamma delta (Vδ T cells), which may be a novel prognostic prediction of HCC.