KEY TAKEAWAYS
- The study aimed to explore how chemotactic cytokine-related genes impact the development of AML.
- Researchers identified CXCR3, CXCR2, CXCR6, CCL20, CCL4, and CCR2 as key prognostic genes in AML, offering new treatment insights.
Chemotactic cytokines are crucial in developing acute myeloid leukemia (AML). Therefore, studying chemotactic cytokine-related genes (CCRGs) in AML is essential.
Yanfei Hou and the team aimed to investigate how CCRGs contribute to the development of AML.
Using the TCGA-AML, GSE114868, and GSE12417 datasets, differential expression analysis identified differentially expressed chemotactic cytokine-related genes (DE-CCRGs). These genes were selected by intersecting differentially expressed genes between AML and control groups with chemotactic cytokine-related genes.
Functional enrichment analysis and protein-protein interaction (PPI) network construction were then used to explore DE-CCRG functions. Univariate Cox regression, LASSO, and multivariate Cox regression analyses identified relevant prognostic genes and developed a prognostic model. The study included survival analysis of these genes, along with functional similarity analysis, immune analysis, enrichment analysis, and drug prediction.
Results showed that differential expression analysis identified 6,743 genes, with 29 DE-CCRGs selected for further study. Functional enrichment analysis indicated that DE-CCRGs were mainly involved in chemotactic cytokine-related functions and pathways.
About 6 prognostic genes—CXCR3, CXCR2, CXCR6, CCL20, CCL4, and CCR2—were included in a risk model, which was validated using the GSE12417 dataset. Survival analysis revealed significant differences in overall survival (OS) between high and low expression groups of these prognostic genes, suggesting their strong association with patient survival.
Additionally, 9 immune cell types differed between risk groups, with CCR2 showing the strongest positive correlation with monocytes and the strongest negative correlation with resting mast cells. The high-risk group had a lower tumor immune dysfunction and exclusion score.
The study concluded that CXCR3, CXCR2, CXCR6, CCL20, CCL4, and CCR2 are prognostic genes linked to AML and the tumor immune microenvironment. These findings provide new insights into the prevention and treatment of AML.
This work was supported by the Shanxi Province Surface Science Foundation, the Wuhu Science and Technology Research Project and the Wannan Medical College School-Level Key Project.
Source: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39135956/
Hou Y, Chen Y, Zhang Y, et al. (2024). “Prognostic role of chemokine-related genes in acute myeloid leukemia.” PeerJ. 2024;12:e17862. Published 2024 Aug 9. doi:10.7717/peerj.17862
