PD-L2 based immune signature confers poor prognosis in HNSCC

OncoImmunology

Aifeng Yang¹  Yu Ren²  Mei Mei²  Zhenyue Gao²  Yiqi Xu²  Yatian Li²  Chao Liu³  Yini Xu³  Xuan Zhou³  Xudong Wang³  Xiaoyue Zhang³  Yu Qiao³  Qianqian Zhou³  Lingping Kong⁴ 

[1] Department of Second General Surgery, Shuangyashan People’s Hospital, Heilongjiang, China;School of Basic Medical Sciences, Tianjin Medical University;Tianjin Medical University Cancer Institute and Hospital, Key Laboratory of Cancer Prevention and Therapy, Tianjin Cancer Institute, National Clinical Research Center of Cancer;Tianjin Medical University General Hospital;

关键词: programmed cell death 1 ligand 2;    immune signature;    head and neck squamous cell carcinoma;    interleukin-6;    prognosis;   

DOI  :  10.1080/2162402X.2021.1947569

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

PD-L2 expression is an important predictor of anti-PD-1 therapy efficacy in patients with head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC). However, whether the PD-L2-based immune signature can serve as a prognostic biomarker for patients with HNSCC remains unclear. Here, we reported that PD-L2 was positively stained in 62.7% of tumors, which was more than twice as that of PD-L1, and in 61.4% of patients with PD-L1-negative tumors. Survival tree analysis (STA) revealed that PD-L2high was an independent predictor of poor overall survival (OS). Six patterns were generated from STA, demonstrating that patients with PD-L2lowCD3high were associated with an improved median OS of 72 months and prognostic index (PI) of −3.95 (95% CI, −5.14 to −2.76), whereas patients with PD-L2highCD3lowCD8low to a median OS of 10 months and PI of 1.43 (95% CI, 0.56 to 2.30). Analysis of single-cell RNA sequencing showed that PD-L2 expression was associated with IL-6 expression. We confirmed that IL-6 augments PD-L2 expression in HNSCC cell lines. The PD-L2-based immune signature can serve as an effective biomarker for anti-PD-1 therapy. In addition, PD-L2 may serve as a potential immunotherapeutic target, and we propose anti-IL6 therapy in the adjuvant setting for patients with HNSCC with high PD-L2 expression.

【 授权许可】

Unknown