About ImmuneEditome

A-to-I RNA editing contributes to nearly 90% of all editing events in human. It is catalyzed by specific adenosine deaminase (ADAR) which binds to double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) motifs. The main and probably ancestral role of these editing events is to prevent dsRNA triggering an innate immune response mediated by melanoma differentiation-associated protein 5 (MDA5). The links between the editing of genes and immune response remain to be studied for their contributions to pathogenesis, progression, and treatment of cancer. Here, we built ImmuneEditome, aiming to provide a resource and reference for the functional annotation of enriched editing regions (EERs) with cancer immunity. We identified 17,689 EERs in 11,052 samples across 33 cancer types from the TCGA database (The Cancer Genome Atlas). For these EER-associated genes (EAGs, 7,818), we performed multiple functional annotations. These include studies of their preferred genomic locations, tumor-specific properties, potential roles with cancer immunity, and possible effects on drug sensitivity. The immune studies reveal the associations of EERs/EAGs with immune infiltration, immune gene set scores, immune genes, and immune splicing events. All these analyses archived in ImmuneEditome will uncover the functions of RNA editing with cancer immunity, providing a novel knowledgebase for tumor immune therapy.