A tumor microenvironment-focused signature based on m6A and lactylation modification predicts prognosis and immunotherapy response in hepatocellular carcinoma

This study aims to investigate the role of lactylation and m6A modification-related genes in the tumor microenvironment and immunotherapy for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) patients. RNA-sequence data and corresponding clinical information of HCC were obtained from the TCGA and ICGC datasets. LASSO Cox regression analysis was implied to construct a lactylation-m6A related prognostic model. The 7-gene signature was established and effectively stratified patients into high- and low-risk groups. Further analysis revealed significant differences between the two risk groups in terms of tumor microenvironment, expression levels of immune checkpoint genes, and drug responsiveness. Specifically, the high-risk group exhibited increased immune cell infiltration, lower IC50 values for several drugs including 5-fluorouracil, afatinib, crizotinib, cediranib, taselisib, and staurosporine; Whereas the low-risk group displayed reduced stromal component proportions and better responses to entinostat, irinotecan, KRAS inhibitors, cisplatin, axitinib, and topotecan. Functionally, knockdown of TCOF1 and HDAC1 significantly attenuated the migration and invasive capacity of Huh-7cells. The lactylation-m6A related prognostic model exhibited robust predictive efficiency in HCC. TCOF1 and HDAC1 may be promising tumor biomarkers for HCC and more researches are needed to validate these results.