CD8+ T cells work as a key effector of adaptive immunity and are closely associated with immune response for killing tumor cells. It is crucial to understand the role of tumor-infiltrating CD8+ T cells in uveal melanoma (UM) to predict the prognosis and response to immunotherapy.
Single-cell transcriptomes of UM with immune-related genes were combined to screen the CD8+ T-cell-associated immune-related genes (CDIRGs) for subsequent analysis. Next, a prognostic gene signature referred to tumor-infiltrating CD8+ T cells was constructed and validated in several UM bulk RNA sequencing datasets. The risk score of UM patients was calculated and classified into high- or low-risk subgroup. The prognostic value of risk score was estimated by using multivariate Cox analysis and Kaplan–Meier survival analysis. Moreover, the potential ability of gene signature for predicting immunotherapy response was further explored.
In total, 202 CDIRGs were screened out from the single-cell RNA sequencing of GSE139829. Next, a gene signature containing three CDIRGs (
Our work gives an inspiration to explain the limited response for the current immune checkpoint inhibitors to UM. Besides, we constructed a novel gene signature to predict prognosis and immunotherapy responses, which may be regarded as a promising therapeutic target.