Evidence map›Paper›PMID 34054849›Full record

ArticleFrontiers in immunology2021

A Cancer-Specific Qualitative Method for Estimating the Proportion of Tumor-Infiltrating Immune Cells.

Huiting Xiao, Jiashuai Zhang, Kai Wang, Kai Song, Hailong Zheng, Jing Yang, Keru Li, Rongqiang Yuan, Wenyuan Zhao, Yang Hui

Open access · goldAbstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Frontiers in immunology, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
3citing papers in PubMed
0.3field-weighted citation impact, top 42% of its field
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

3 citing papers in PubMed, 3 citations in OpenAlex.

  1. Review
  2. Article
  3. Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

10 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.

Huiting XiaoDepartment of Systems Biology, College of Bioinformatics Science and Technology, Harbin Medical University, Harbin, China.
Jiashuai ZhangDepartment of Systems Biology, College of Bioinformatics Science and Technology, Harbin Medical University, Harbin, China.
Kai WangDepartment of Systems Biology, College of Bioinformatics Science and Technology, Harbin Medical University, Harbin, China.
Kai SongDepartment of Systems Biology, College of Bioinformatics Science and Technology, Harbin Medical University, Harbin, China.
Hailong ZhengDepartment of Systems Biology, College of Bioinformatics Science and Technology, Harbin Medical University, Harbin, China.
Jing YangDepartment of Systems Biology, College of Bioinformatics Science and Technology, Harbin Medical University, Harbin, China.
Keru LiDepartment of Systems Biology, College of Bioinformatics Science and Technology, Harbin Medical University, Harbin, China.
Rongqiang YuanDepartment of Systems Biology, College of Bioinformatics Science and Technology, Harbin Medical University, Harbin, China.
Wenyuan ZhaoDepartment of Systems Biology, College of Bioinformatics Science and Technology, Harbin Medical University, Harbin, China.
Yang HuiDepartment of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Harbin Medical University, Harbin, China.
Harbin Medical University · CN

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Tumor-infiltrating immune cells are important components in the tumor microenvironment (TME) and different types of these cells exert different effects on tumor development and progression; these effects depend upon the type of cancer involved. Several methods have been developed for estimating the proportion of immune cells using bulk transcriptome data. However, there is a distinct lack of methods that are capable of predicting the immune contexture in specific types of cancer. Furthermore, the existing methods are based on absolute gene expression and are susceptible to experimental batch effects, thus resulting in incomparability across different datasets. In this study, we considered two common neoplasms as examples (colorectal cancer [CRC] and melanoma) and introduced the Tumor-infiltrating Immune Cell Proportion Estimator (TICPE), a cancer-specific qualitative method for estimating the proportion of tumor-infiltrating immune cells. The TICPE was based on the relative expression orderings (REOs) of gene pairs within a sample and is notably insensitive to batch effects. Performance evaluation using public expression data with mRNA mixtures, single-cell RNA-Seq (scRNA-Seq) data, immunohistochemistry data, and simulated bulk RNA-seq samples, indicated that the TICPE can estimate the proportion of immune cells with levels of accuracy that are clearly superior to other methods. Furthermore, we showed that the TICPE could effectively detect prognostic signals in patients with tumors and changes in the fractions of immune cells during immunotherapy in melanoma. In conclusion, our work presented a unique novel method, TICPE, to estimate the proportion of immune cells in specific cancer types and explore the effect of the infiltration of immune cells on the efficacy of immunotherapy and the prognosis of cancer. The source code for TICPE is available at https://github.com/huitingxiao/TICPE.

Indexed as

Gene Expression ProfilingHumansLymphocytes, Tumor-InfiltratingNeoplasmsTumor Microenvironmentimmunotherapyprognosisrelative expression orderingssignature genestumor microenvironment

Identifiers

PMID34054849
PMCPMC8160514
OpenAlexW3161368720

What OpenQuestion holds

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Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.