AUTHOR=Gong Jing , Jin Bo , Shang Liang , Liu Ning TITLE=Characterization of the Immune Cell Infiltration Landscape of Thyroid Cancer for Improved Immunotherapy JOURNAL=Frontiers in Molecular Biosciences VOLUME=8 YEAR=2021 URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/molecular-biosciences/articles/10.3389/fmolb.2021.714053 DOI=10.3389/fmolb.2021.714053 ISSN=2296-889X ABSTRACT=

Within the endocrine system, thyroid cancer (THCA) is the most typical malignant tumor. Tumor-infiltrating immune cells play vital roles in tumor progression, recurrence, metastasis as well as response to immunotherapy. However, THCA’s immune infiltrative landscape is still not clarified. Therefore, we utilized two statistical algorithms to investigate the immune cell infiltration (ICI) landscape of 505 THCA samples and defined three ICI immune subtypes. The ICI scores were calculated using principal-component analysis. Increased tumor mutation burden (TMB) and immune-related signaling pathways were associated to a high ICI score. The high ICI score group indicated a relatively longer overall survival (OS) than the low ICI score group. Most immune checkpoint-related and immune activation-related genes were considerably upregulated in the ICI high group, which indicates stronger immunogenicity and a greater likelihood of benefiting from immunotherapy. In two cohort studies of patients receiving immunotherapy, high-ICI-score group showed notable therapeutic effects and clinical advantages compared to those with lower ICI scores. These results demonstrate that ICI score acts as an effective prognostic indicator and predictor of response to immunotherapy.