Identification and Validation of Immune-Related Methylation Clusters for Predicting Immune Activity and Prognosis in Breast Cancer.
The role of DNA methylation of breast cancer-infiltrating immune cells has not been fully explored. We conducted a cohort-based retrospective study analyzing the genome-wide immune-related DNA methylation of 1057 breast cancer patients from the TCGA cohort and GSE72308 cohort. Based on patients' overall survival (OS), a prognostic risk score system using 18 immune-related methylation genes (IRMGs) was established and further validated in an independent cohort. Kaplan-Meier analysis showed a clear separation of OS between the low- and high-risk groups. Patients in the low-risk group had a higher immune score and stromal score compared with the high-risk group. Moreover, the characteristics based on 18-IRMGs signature were related to the tumor immune microenvironment and affected the abundance of tumor-infiltrating immune cells. Consistently, the 18-IRMGs signatures showed similar influences on immune modulation and survival in another external validation cohort (GSE72308). In conclusion, the proposed 18-IRMGs signature could be a potential marker for breast cancer prognostication.
['Yang|Anli|A|', 'Zhou|Ying|Y|', 'Kong|Yanan|Y|', 'Wei|Xiaoli|X|', 'Ye|Feng|F|', 'Zhang|Lijuan|L|', 'Zhong|Xian|X|', 'Li|Mingyue|M|', 'Lu|Shilin|S|', 'An|Xin|X|', 'Xiao|Weikai|W|']
prognosis breast cancer DNA methylation IRMGs immune infiltration