Cytotoxic T-lymphocytes in acute myeloid leukemia: Monitoring prognosis and guiding treatment choice

BackgroundCytotoxic T-lymphocyte (CTL)-mediated therapy has become the central theme of cancer immunotherapy. The present study emphasized the role of CTLs in acute myeloid leukemia (AML) and aimed to understand the role of CTLs cytogenetic markers in monitoring AML prognostic outcomes and clinical treatment responses.MethodsSeurat was employed to analyze single-cell RNA sequencing data in GSE116256. CellChat was used to detect cell-cell interactions to determine the central role of CTLs. The marker genes of CTLs were extracted and randomForestSRC was employed to construct a random forest model. The prognosis, immune checkpoint expression, immune cell infiltration, immunotherapy response and drug sensitivity of AML patients were evaluated according to the model.ResultsSeven types of cellular components of AML were identified in GSE116256, and CTLs radiated the most interactions with other cell types. Random forest analysis screened out six marker genes for construction of the model. The risk score calculated according to the model was positively correlated with immune score, immune cell infiltration, expression of multiple immune checkpoints and immune effect pathway. The response rate of immunotherapy was significantly higher and more sensitive to 14 drugs in high-risk samples than in low-risk samples, whereas low-risk patients showed a higher sensitivity to six drugs.ConclusionsThe present study emphasized the central role of CTLs in cell communication and established a random forest regression model based on its cytogenetic markers, which helps to stratify the prognosis of AML, promotes the understanding of the phenotype of AML and may also guide the treatment choice of AML patients, which contributed to stratification of AML prognosis, promoted understanding of the phenotype of AML and may guide treatment selection in patients with AML. Seven types of cell components in acute myeloid leukemia (AML) were identified, cytotoxic T-lymphocyte (CTL) were the cells that communicate most closely with the other six types of cells. Six marker genes in CTLs were identified to construct a model, which showed a good prognostic effect on AML. The risk score calculated by the model was significantly positively correlated with tumor immunoinfiltration. The model could predict the therapeutic effect of immunotherapy and antitumor drugs.image