Identification of cancer-associated fibroblasts signature for predicting the prognosis and immunotherapy response in hepatocellular carcinoma

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the most common malignancies globally with poor prognosis. Cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAFs) play multiple functions in the regulation of tumorigenesis, metastasis and therapeutic resistance of cancer. The current study aimed to explore the role of CAFs-related genes in the prognosis and immunotherapy response in HCC. CAFs-related genes were identified by using single-cell RNA-sequencing analysis. Least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) analysis was conducted to develop a CAFs-related prognostic signature (FRPS) in TCGA dataset and verified in ICGC, GSE14520 and GSE76427 cohorts. Several tools, including Tumor Immune Dysfunction and Exclusion (TIDE) score, immunophenoscore, and Tumor Mutation Burden (TMB) score were used to evaluate the value of FRPS in predicting immunotherapy benefits. The FRPS constructed based on 10 genes (RGS5, CNN3, PALLD, FLNA, KLHL23, MYC, NDRG2, SERPINE1, CD151 CALU) served as an independent risk factor and showed stable and powerful performance in predicting the overall survival rate of HCC patients with an AUCs of 0. 734, 0.727, and 0.717 in 2-, 3-, and 4-year ROC curve in TCGA cohort. Low risk score indicated a higher abundance of CD8(+) T cells and NK, and lower abundance of Treg. Moreover, HCC patients with low risk score had a higher PD1&CTLA4 immunophenoscore, higher TMB score, and lower TIDE score. Moreover, high risk score indicated a lower IC50 value of 5-fluorouracil, camptothecin, cisplatin, docetaxel, gemcitabine, paclitaxel, afatinib, crizotinib, dasatinib, erlotinib, erlotinib, gefitinib, lapatinib, and osimertinib in HCC. Our study develops a novel FRPS HCC. The FRPS acts as a risk factor for the prognosis of HCC patients and it can predict the immunotherapy benefits of HCC patients.