Study on the expression patterns of C-X-C motif chemokine receptor 7,its ligands,and NIMA-related kinase 1 in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma
LI Dian-lu
TIAN Xu-teng-yue
LI Ying-hua
XU Juan
Abstract：Objective To explore the expression patterns of chemokine receptor C-X-C motif chemokine receptor 7(CXCR7)and its ligands,C-X-C motif chemokine ligand(CXCL)11 and CXCL12,in the tumor microenvironment of head and neck squamous cell carcinoma(HNSCC)as well as the correlation between the expression of CXCR7 and NIMA-related kinase 1(NEK1).Methods The ex-pression patterns of CXCR7,CXCL11,and CXCL 12 in different cell types within the HNSCC tumor microenviron-ment were analyzed by GO analysis and UMAP visualiza-tion of GSE103322 data set from gene expression omni-bus.Kaplan-Meier survival curve was drawn using the RNA-seq data set from Kaplan-Meier Plotter database to assess the influence of CXCR7 expression level on the prognosis of HNSCC patients.The tumor and tumor adjacent normal tis-sues were obtained from 34 HSNCC patients(excluding nasopharyngeal carcinoma)in Department of Stomatology,Sijing Hospital,Songjiang District,Shanghai,from January to September 2024.The expression of CXCR7 and NEK1 in tissues was examined under microscopy after immunohistochemical staining.Results In the HNSCC tumor microenvironment,CXCR7 was mainly expressed in fibroblasts,malignant cells,and endothelial cells.CXCL11 was only expressed in some malignant cells,while CXCL12 was mainly expressed in fibroblasts.The survival rate of the CXCR7 low-expression group was higher than that of the CXCR7 high-expression group(HR=1.69,95％CI:1.24-2.29,P＜0.001).Immunohis-tochemistry showed that CXCR7 was mainly expressed in the cell membrane,while NEK1 was mainly expressed in the cytoplasm.The high-expression rate of CXCR7 and NEK1 in HNSCC tumor tissues was higher than that in their adjacent normal tissues(x2 values were 15.942 and 10.692,respectively,P＜0.05 for both).The expression score of CXCR7 was positively correlated with that of NEK1 in HNSCC tumor tissues(r=0.802,P＜0.001).Conclusion CXCR7 may be an important biological marker for prognosis of HNSCC.CXCR7 and its ligands may play critical roles in regulating immune infiltration and function in the HNSCC tumor microenvironment.CXCR7 and NEK1 may synergistically promote HNSCC progression.However,the detailed regulatory mechanisms of them still need to be elucidated.
Keywords：C-X-C motif chemokine receptor 7C-X-C motif chemokine ligandNIMA-related kinase 1head and neck squamous cell carcinomatumor microenvironmentbiological feature
Publication Date：2025-03-30
Online Publishing Date：2025-08-15(First online date of this platform, not the publication date of the document)
Pages：7( 195-201 )