Prognostic Impact of Autophagy and Immunity Related Biomarker for Uveal Melanoma

Abstract Background: Autophagy and immunity related genes serve crucial roles in carcinogenesis, but little is known about the prognostic impact for uveal melanoma (UM).Methods: Autophagy related and immunity related genes (AIRGs) expression data of 80 UM patients were obtained from the cancer genome atlas project (TCGA) database. Next, univariate cox regression analysis and the least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) algorithms were applied to build a robust AIRGs signature in TCGA and validated in another two independent datasets. Besides, UM patients classified into two subgroups based on the risk model. Differences of clinical outcome, tumor microenvironment and the likelihood of chemotherapeutic response were further explored.Results: In total, a 4-AIRGs signature was constructed and validated in various datasets, which can robustly predict patients’ metastasis-free survival (MFS) and overall survival (OS) and is an independent prognostic factor in UM. The UM patients can be classified into high and low risk subgroups by applied risk score system. The high risk group have poor clinical outcomes, higher CD8+ T cell and macrophage immune-infiltrating and more sensitive to chemotherapies. In addition, Gene Set Enrichment Analysis (GSEA) analysis revealed that hallmark epithelial-mesenchymal transition and KRAS pathways are commonly enriched in high-risk expression phenotype.Conclusion: Thus, our findings provide a new clinical strategy for the accurate diagnosis and identify a novel prognostic autophagy and immunity associated biomarker for the treatment of uveal melanoma.