Abstract
BACKGROUND: Human gliomas are highly fatal tumor with a significant feature of immune suppression. The immune system in glioma is gradually revealed, and immunotherapy is expected to improve the survival of glioma patients. With a deep understanding of the immune microenvironment of glioma, immunotherapy of gliomas has been increased exponentially in recent years. Searching for key regulators of immune response in glioma will provide clinical targets for immunotherapy. In our research, we focus on human leukocyte antigen (HLA) system, responsible for regulating the immune system, and discovered the relationship between HLA-F expression and clinical prognosis in gliomas. METHODS: A total of 593 gliomas patients are concluded in our research, 325 patients from Chinese Glioma Genome Atlas (CGGA) and 268 patients from GSE 16011 set. Kaplan-Meier (KM) analysis is performed to explore the prognostic value of HLA-F. T test analysis is used to find the distribution difference in various groups. R language packages are used for other statistical computations and figures drawing. RESULTS: HLA-F was significantly negatively correlated with overall survival (OS) in all grade gliomas and glioblastoma (GBM). Moreover, HLA-F was enriched in GBM and IDH1 wild-type group, and HLA-F was a mesenchymal subtype marker. Pearson correlation test showed that HLA-F was correlated with other HLA-I molecules. CONCLUSION: HLA-F expression was positively with malignant phenotype and negatively with OS indicating that HLA-F could predict the immune state in glioma, and might be a clinical target of glioma immunotherapy. Key Words: HLA-F; glioma; immunotherapy; OS