Assessment for prognostic value of differentially expressed genes in immune microenvironment of clear cell renal cell carcinoma

Tumor-infiltrating immune cells have been recognized to be associated with prognosis and response to immunotherapy; however, genes related to immune microenvironment of clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC) remains unclear. To better understand the effects of genes involved in immune and stromal cells on prognosis, we used Cancer Genome Atlas Kidney Renal Clear Cell Carcinoma (TCGA-KIRC), DAVID database and ESTMATE algorithm, and divided the patients into low and high groups according to immune (median: 1038.45) and stromal scores (median: 667.945), respectively. We found the immune scores were significantly correlated with clinicopathological parameters and overall survival (OS). Based on immune scores, 890 DEGs were significantly associated with OS among the 1433 up-regulated genes. Based on top 10 DEGs (IL10RA, FCER1G, SASH3, TIGIT, RHOH, IL12RB1, AIF1, LPXN, LAPTM5 and SP140), cases with number of up-regulated genes >= 5 were associated poor OS (P = 0.002). In addition, the mean differences of percentages of CD8 T cells (11.32%), CD4 memory resting T cells (-4.52%) and mast resting cells (-3.55%) between low and high immune scores were the most significant. Thus, combination of these genes might use to predict the efficacy of immunotherapy. Further analyses of these genes were warrant to explore their potential association with the prognosis of ccRCC.