Fig. 1: CD3E expression is associated with antitumor immune responses in human neuroblastoma.
a Heatmap of the normalized expression of immune genes ordered from left to right by increasing levels of CD3E expression of 498 NB patients from the SEQC-NB available in the GEO database. b Gene ontology term enrichment analysis performed by DAVID Bioinformatics Resources (https://david.ncifcrf.gov/) reveals 13 statistically significant (Benjamini–Hochberg adjusted P value <0.05) biological processes controlled by upregulated genes among patients with high CD3E expression. c–e Correlation of CD3E expression with the indicated genes in NB patients. Gene transcripts reported to be associated with increased immune cell infiltration, immune cell trafficking, and immune functional status15,80,81,82 were studied in the SEQC-NB dataset. Genes that met the following criteria: (i) a correlation coefficient (R) greater than or equal to at least 0.4 with statistical significance (P < 0.05), (ii) a significantly different expression between patients with high and low CD3E expression, and (iii) showing consensus in the Nanostring cohort, were displayed. Robust F-test (two-sided) on the robust regression fit of a linear model was used for data analysis. c Cytokines and chemokines involved in immune cell trafficking. d Activation and exhaustion molecules. e DC and NK-cell function markers. Correlations were assessed measuring the coefficient of determination of a robust linear regression model fit on the data (see “Statistical analysis”). No adjustment was required unless otherwise stated. Statistically significant P values are indicated.
