Significance of CD8+ T cell infiltration-related biomarkers and the corresponding prediction model for the prognosis of kidney renal clear cell carcinoma

Abstract

Cytotoxic T cells expressing cell surface CD8 played a key role in anti-cancer immunotherapy, including kidney renal clear cell carcinoma (KIRC). Here we set out to comprehensively analyze and evaluate the significance of CD8+ T cell-related markers for patients with KIRC. We checked immune cell response in KIRC and identified cell type-specific markers and related pathways in the tumor-infiltrating CD8+ T (TIL-CD8T) cells. We used these markers to explore their prognostic signatures in TIL-CD8+ T by evaluating their prognostic efficacy and group differences at various levels. Through pan-cancer analysis, 12 of 63 up-regulated and 162 of 396 down-regulated genes in CD8+ T cells were found to be significantly correlated with the survival prognosis. Based on our highly integrated multi-platform analyses across multiple datasets, we constructed a 6-gene risk scoring model specific to TIL-CD8T. In this model, high TIL-CD8 sig score was corresponding to a higher incidence frequency of copy number variation and drug sensitivity to sorafenib. Moreover, the prognosis of patients with the same or similar immune checkpoint gene levels could be distinguished from each other by TIL-CD8 sig score.