Pan-cancer prognosis, immune infiltration, and drug resistance characterization of lung squamous cell carcinoma tumor microenvironment-related genes.

BACKGROUND: The tumor microenvironment (TME) plays an important role in cancer development; however, its implications in lung squamous cell carcinoma (LUSC) and pan-cancer have been poorly understood.

METHODS: In this study, The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and Estimation of Stromal and Immune cells in Malignant Tumor tissue using Expression Data (ESTIMATE) datasets were applied to identify differentially expressed genes. Additionally, online public databases were utilized for in-depth bioinformatics analysis of pan-cancer datasets to investigate the prognostic implications of TME-related genes further.

RESULTS: Our study demonstrated a significant association between stromal scores, immune scores, and specific clinical characteristics in LUSC patients. C3AR1, CSF1R, CCL2, CCR1, and CD14 were identified as prognostic genes related to the TME. All TME-related prognostic genes demonstrated varying degrees of correlation with immune infiltration subtypes and tumor cell stemness. Moreover, our study revealed that TME-related prognostic genes, particularly C3AR1 and CCR1, might contribute to drug resistance in cancer cells.

CONCLUSIONS: The identified TME-related prognostic genes, particularly C3AR1 and CCR1, have potential implications for understanding and targeting drug resistance mechanisms in cancer cells.