Identification of prognosis-related genes in the cervical cancer immune microenvironment

Abstract Background Cervical cancer is the fourth most common cancer in women worldwide. The metastasis and invasion of this type of cancer are closely related to the tumor microenvironment. Immune cells and stromal cells dominate the tumor microenvironment in cervical cancer. Therefore, we should further understand the association between tumor progress and immune cells or stromal cells.Methods we downloaded the gene expression profiles and clinical data of 307 patients with cervical cancers based on the TCGA database. Subsequently the Estimation of Stromal and Immune cells in Malignant Tumours using Expression data (ESTIMATE) algorithm was used to calculate the scores of stromal cells and immune cells to find differential genes, and analyzed the correlation between their scores and patient survival. Moreover, we also used R language packs and network tools to analyze GO term, gene enrichment pathway, and protein-protein relationship to find genes related to inflammation and immune regulation.Results The gene expression profiles and corresponding clinical data of 307 patients were obtained from TCGA datasets. The results showed that there was a statistically significant difference between the high immunescore group and the low immunescore group. And the low immunescore group had shorter lifetimes than the high scores group (P = 0.035).Moreover, PPI network analysis CCR5 and CXCL9, -10, -11 / CXCR3 axis might be new target for cervical cancer treatment. Finally, Kaplan-Meier survival curves found out nine representative genes significantly related to survival including BTNL8 , CCR7 , CD1E , CD6 , CD27 , CD79A , GRAP2 , SP1B , LY9 .Conclusions These genes can be used as markers for the prognosis and diagnosis of cervical cancer and also might be used as treatment targets.