Construction of a Prognostic Model for Hepatocellular Carcinoma Based on Immunoautophagy-Related Genes and Tumor Microenvironment

BACKGROUND: The aim of this study was to screen and identify immunoautophagy-related genes (IARGs) in HCC patients and clarify their potential prognostic value in HCC patients. METHODS: Immune-related genes and autophagy-related gene were downloaded from public databases. Cox regression analysis was used to selected several immunoautophagy-related genes to establish a prognostic model, and patients were divided into high- and low-risk groups based on median risk score. We analyzed the overall survival and clinicopathological characteristics between two groups. Meanwhile, internal validation dataset and external ICGC dataset were used to verify robustness of the model. Associations between six immune cells infiltrates and risk score were analyzed. RESULTS: A prognostic model was established based on CANX and HDAC1. The prognoses of the high-risk group were worse than low-risk group in both TCGA and ICGC datasets. Multivariate Cox regression analysis showed that risk score was an independent prognostic factor for HCC patients. Results showed that the risk score in young group was higher than elderly group. Patients with poorly differentiated tumor may have high risk score and poor survival. The score was positively correlated with immune cells. CONCLUSION: Our study shows that immunoautophagy-related genes have potential prognostic value for patients with HCC and may provide new information and direction for targeted therapy.