1
|
Li C, Zhang B, Schaafsma E, Reuben A, Wang L, Turk MJ, Zhang J, Cheng C. TimiGP: Inferring cell-cell interactions and prognostic associations in the tumor immune microenvironment through gene pairs. Cell Rep Med 2023; 4:101121. [PMID: 37467716 PMCID: PMC10394258 DOI: 10.1016/j.xcrm.2023.101121] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/02/2022] [Revised: 04/11/2023] [Accepted: 06/21/2023] [Indexed: 07/21/2023]
Abstract
Determining the prognostic association of different immune cell types in the tumor microenvironment is critical for understanding cancer biology and developing new therapeutic strategies. However, this is challenging in certain cancer types, where the abundance of different immune subsets is highly correlated. In this study, we develop a computational method named TimiGP to overcome this challenge. Based on bulk gene expression and survival data, TimiGP infers cell-cell interactions that reveal the association between immune cell relative abundance and prognosis. As demonstrated in metastatic melanoma, TimiGP prioritizes immune cells critical in prognosis based on the identified cell-cell interactions. Highly consistent results are obtained by TimiGP when applied to seven independent melanoma datasets and when different cell-type marker sets are used as inputs. Additionally, TimiGP can leverage single-cell RNA sequencing data to delineate the tumor immune microenvironment at high resolutions across a wide range of cancer types.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Chenyang Li
- Department of Genomic Medicine, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX 77030, USA; Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center UTHealth Houston, Houston, TX 77030, USA
| | - Baoyi Zhang
- Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Rice University, Houston, TX 77030, USA
| | - Evelien Schaafsma
- Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH 03755, USA
| | - Alexandre Reuben
- Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center UTHealth Houston, Houston, TX 77030, USA; Department of Thoracic/Head and Neck Medical Oncology, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX 77030, USA
| | - Linghua Wang
- Department of Genomic Medicine, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX 77030, USA; Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center UTHealth Houston, Houston, TX 77030, USA
| | - Mary Jo Turk
- Department of Microbiology and Immunology, The Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth, Lebanon, NH 03756, USA; Norris Cotton Cancer Center, The Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth, Lebanon, NH 03756, USA
| | - Jianjun Zhang
- Department of Genomic Medicine, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX 77030, USA; Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center UTHealth Houston, Houston, TX 77030, USA; Department of Thoracic/Head and Neck Medical Oncology, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX 77030, USA; Lung Cancer Genomics Program, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX 77030, USA; Lung Cancer Interception Program, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX 77030, USA.
| | - Chao Cheng
- Department of Medicine, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX 77030, USA; Dan L. Duncan Comprehensive Cancer Center, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX 77030, USA; The Institute for Clinical and Translational Research, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX 77030, USA.
| |
Collapse
|