Tumor microenvironment phenotypes and prognostic evaluation tools for osteosarcoma characterized by different prognostic outcomes and immunotherapy responses.

BACKGROUND: The physiological and immunological characteristics of the tumor microenvironment (TME) have a profound impact on the effectiveness of immunotherapy. The present study aimed to define the TME subtype of osteosarcoma according to the signatures representing the global TME of the tumor, as well as create a new prognostic assessment tool to monitor the prognosis, TME activity and immunotherapy response of patients with osteosarcoma. METHODS: The enrichment scores of 29 functional gene expression signatures in osteosarcoma samples were calculated by single sample gene set enrichment analysis (ssGSEA). TME classification of osteosarcoma was performed and a prognostic assessment tool was created based on 29 ssGSEA scores to comprehensively correlate them with TME components, immunotherapy efficacy and prognosis of osteosarcoma. RESULTS: Three TME subtypes were generated that differed in survival, TME activity and immunotherapeutic response. Four differentially expressed genes between TME subtypes were involved in the development of prognostic assessment tools. The established prognosis assessment tool had strong performance in both training and verification cohorts, could be effectively applied to the survival prediction of samples of different ages, genders and transfer states, and could well distinguish the TME status of different samples. CONCLUSIONS: The present study describes three different TME phenotypes in osteosarcoma, provides a risk stratification tool for osteosarcoma prognosis and TME status assessment, and provides additional information for clinical decision-making of immunotherapy.

Up-regulation of NF45 correlates with Schwann cell proliferation after sciatic nerve crush.

Nuclear factor (NF)45 (also known as interleukin enhancer-binding factor (ILF)2), is a transcription factor that interacts with NF90 to regulate gene expression. It has long been implicated in the regulation of cell proliferation. However, the role of NF45 in the process of peripheral nervous system regeneration after injury remains poorly understood. Herein, we investigated the spatiotemporal expression of NF45 in a rat sciatic nerve crush model. We detected the up-regulated expression of NF45 in Schwann cell after sciatic nerve crush. What's more, the expression of the cell proliferation marker proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA) exhibited a similar tendency with that of NF45. In cell cultures, we observed increased expression of NF45 during the process of TNF-α-induced Schwann cell proliferation, whereas the protein level of p21 was down-regulated. Interference of NF45 led to enhanced expression of p21 and also impaired proliferation of Schwan cells. Taken together, our data implicated that NF45 was up-regulated in the sciatic nerve after crush, which was associated with proliferation of Schwann cell.