Association between APOBEC3H-Mediated Demethylation and Immune Landscape in Head and Neck Squamous Carcinoma

Immunotherapy has been demonstrated as a promising strategy in controlling head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSC). The AID/APOBEC family is well characterized as DNA mutator and considered to play critical roles in immune responses in HNSC. However, the expression pattern and deamination-dependent demethylation roles of AID/APOBECs in HNSC are unclear. In this study, the RNA-seq and DNA methylation profiles of HNSC from TCGA database and cell-based experiments were applied to analyze the relationships between AID/APOBEC expression levels, patients' clinical outcomes, methylation alterations, and immune responses. Here, we found that APOBEC3H was abnormally upregulated in HNSC patients. HPV+ patients tended to have higher APOBEC3H levels than HPV- patients. Remarkably, patients with high APOBEC3H levels showed a favorable overall survival. Furthermore, tumors with high APOBEC3H levels exhibited a genome-wide DNA hypomethylation pattern. APOBEC3H was identified to demethylate and upregulate CXCL10 and improve CD8+ T cell tumor infiltration in the tumor microenvironment. Collectively, APOBEC3H plays critical roles in CD8+ T cell immune infiltration and activation in HNSC, which may be a potential biomarker for oncoimmunotherapy in HNSC.