CD74 is a potential biomarker predicting the response to immune checkpoint blockade

作者：Wenqi Shi, D Chen, Ze-Sen Du, Chun‐Peng Liu, Tian‐Tian Zhai, Feng Pan, Hai-Lu Chen, Wei-Nan Liao, Shaohong Wang, Junhui Fu, Si-Qi Qiu, Zhiyong Wu · 发表于：Cancer Cell International · 年份：2024 · DOI：10.1186/s12935-024-03524-w · 被引用次数：10 · 研究领域：Macrophage Migration Inhibitory Factor、Adenosine and Purinergic Signaling、Nuclear Receptors and Signaling

BACKGROUND: Immune checkpoint blockade (ICB) has been improving the patient outcome in multiple cancer types. However, not all patients respond to ICB. Biomarkers are needed for selecting appropriate patients to receive ICB. CD74 is an important chaperone that regulates antigen presentation for immune response. However, the relationship between CD74 expression and ICB response remains elusive. METHODS: The unified normalized pan-cancer dataset was downloaded from the UCSC database. Wilcoxon Rank Sum Rank Tests were used to analyze the expression differences between normal and tumor samples in each tumor type. Then, the prognostic value of CD74 was determined using univariable Cox proportional hazards regression analysis. The STRING database was utilized to construct the protein-protein interaction (PPI) network of CD74 and the signal pathways were analyzed as well. The correlation of CD74 expression with immune cells and immune regulating genes was investigated in the TIMER database. The TIDE framework was utilized to evaluate the relationship between CD74 expression and the response to immunotherapy. Moreover, the localization of CD74 in the tumor immune microenvironment was verified using multiplex immunohistochemistry. Clinically annotated samples from 38 patients with esophageal cancer treated with neoadjuvant chemotherapy combined with ICB were analyzed for CD74 expression using immunohistochemistry. RESULTS: In this study, we investigated the prognostic and predictive v...