A signature of 17 immune-related gene pairs predicts prognosis and immune status in HNSCC patients

Head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) is an invasive malignancy with high worldwide mortality. Growing evidence has indicated a pivotal correlation between HNSCC prognosis and immune signature. This study investigated an immune-related gene pairs (IRGPs) signature to predict the prognostic value of HNSCC patients. We constructed IRGPs via integrating multiple IRG expression data sets. Moreover, we established the predictive model base on the IRGPs for HNSCC, and utilized multidimensional bioinformatics methods to validate the robustness of prognostic value of the IRGPs signature. In addition, we explored the relationship between the IRGPs model and immune status. Seventeen IRGPs signature was built as the predictive model which predicted prognosis independently and reliably for HNSCC. Compared to the high-risk group, the low-risk group demonstrated a distinctly favorable prognosis including overall survival (OS), disease-specific survival (DSS), and progression-free survival (PFS). The low-risk group showed higher-immune score and lower-tumor purity than the high-risk group. In addition, the low-risk group exhibited higher expression of Programmed cell death 1 ligand 1 (PD-L1) and Microsatellite instability (MSI) score, and lower expression of Tumor Immune Dysfunction and Exclusion (TIDE), which indicated the low-risk group was much more sensitive to immunotherapy. Lastly, the IRGs signature has achieved a higher accuracy than clinical properties for estimation of survival. The IRGPs model is an independent biomarker for estimating the prognosis, and could be also used to predict immunotherapeutic response in HNSCC patients. These findings may provide new ideas for novel biomarkers and may be helpful to formulate personalized immunotherapy strategy.