scholarly journals Identification of a Prognostic Six-Immune-Gene Signature and a Nomogram Model for Uveal Melanoma

Author(s):  
Binghua Yang ◽  
Yuxia Fan ◽  
Renlong Liang ◽  
Yi Wu ◽  
Aiping Gu

Abstract Background: To identify an immune-related prognostic signature and find potential therapeutic targets for uveal melanoma. Methods: The RNA-sequencing data obtained from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) datasets. The prognostic six-immune-gene signature was constructed through least absolute shrinkage and selection operator and multi-variate Cox regression analyses. Functional enrichment analysis and single sample GSEA were carried out. In addition, a nomogram model established by integrating clinical variables and this signature risk score was also constructed and evaluated.Results: We obtained 130 prognostic immune genes, and six of them were selected to construct a prognostic signature in the TCGA uveal melanoma dataset. Patients were classified into high-risk and low-risk groups according to a median risk score of this signature. High-risk group patients had poorer overall survival in comparison to the patients in the low-risk group (p < 0.001). These findings were further validated in two external GEO datasets. A nomogram model proved to be a good classifier for uveal melanoma by combining this signature. Both functional enrichment analysis and single sample GSEA analysis verified that this signature was truly correlated with immune system. In addition, in vitro cell experiments results demonstrated the consistent trend of our computational findings.Conclusion: Our newly identified six-immune-gene signature and a nomogram model could be used as meaningful prognostic biomarkers, which might provide uveal melanoma patients with individualized clinical prognosis prediction and potential novel treatment targets.

Author(s):  
Jianming Wei ◽  
Bo Wang ◽  
Xibo Gao ◽  
Daqing Sun

BackgroundHepatitis C virus-induced genes (HCVIGs) play a critical role in regulating tumor development in hepatic cancer. The role of HCVIGs in hepatic cancer remains unknown. This study aimed to construct a prognostic signature and assess the value of the risk model for predicting the prognosis of hepatic cancer.MethodsDifferentially expressed HCVIGs were identified in hepatic cancer data from the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) and The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) databases using the library (“limma”) package of R software. The protein–protein interaction (PPI) network was constructed using the Cytoscape software. Functional enrichment analysis was performed using the Gene Ontology (GO) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathways. Univariate and multivariate Cox proportional hazard regression analyses were applied to screen for prognostic HCVIGs. The signature of HCVIGs was constructed. Gene Set Enrichment Analysis (GSEA) compared the low-risk and high-risk groups. Finally, the International Cancer Genome Consortium (ICGC) database was used to validate this prognostic signature. Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) was performed to validate the expression of nine HCVIGs in the hepatic cancer cell lines.ResultsA total of 143 differentially expressed HCVIGs were identified in TCGA hepatic cancer dataset. Functional enrichment analysis showed that DNA replication was associated with the development of hepatic cancer. The risk score signature was constructed based on the expression of ZIC2, SLC7A11, PSRC1, TMEM106C, TRAIP, DTYMK, FAM72D, TRIP13, and CENPM. In this study, the risk score was an independent prognostic factor in the multivariate Cox regression analysis [hazard ratio (HR) = 1.433, 95% CI = 1.280–1.605, P &lt; 0.001]. The overall survival curve revealed that the high-risk group had a poor prognosis. The Kaplan–Meier Plotter online database showed that the survival time of hepatic cancer patients with overexpression of HCVIGs in this signature was significantly shorter. The prognostic signature-associated GO and KEGG pathways were significantly enriched in the risk group. This prognostic signature was validated using external data from the ICGC databases. The expression of nine prognostic genes was validated in HepG2 and LO-2.ConclusionThis study evaluates a potential prognostic signature and provides a way to explore the mechanism of HCVIGs in hepatic cancer.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yanjia Hu ◽  
Jing Zhang ◽  
Jing Chen

Abstract Background Hypoxia-related long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) have been proven to play a role in multiple cancers and can serve as prognostic markers. Lower-grade gliomas (LGGs) are characterized by large heterogeneity. Methods This study aimed to construct a hypoxia-related lncRNA signature for predicting the prognosis of LGG patients. Transcriptome and clinical data of LGG patients were obtained from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and the Chinese Glioma Genome Atlas (CGGA). LGG cohort in TCGA was chosen as training set and LGG cohorts in CGGA served as validation sets. A prognostic signature consisting of fourteen hypoxia-related lncRNAs was constructed using univariate and LASSO Cox regression. A risk score formula involving the fourteen lncRNAs was developed to calculate the risk score and patients were classified into high- and low-risk groups based on cutoff. Kaplan-Meier survival analysis was used to compare the survival between two groups. Cox regression analysis was used to determine whether risk score was an independent prognostic factor. A nomogram was then constructed based on independent prognostic factors and assessed by C-index and calibration plot. Gene set enrichment analysis and immune cell infiltration analysis were performed to uncover further mechanisms of this lncRNA signature. Results LGG patients with high risk had poorer prognosis than those with low risk in both training and validation sets. Recipient operating characteristic curves showed good performance of the prognostic signature. Univariate and multivariate Cox regression confirmed that the established lncRNA signature was an independent prognostic factor. C-index and calibration plots showed good predictive performance of nomogram. Gene set enrichment analysis showed that genes in the high-risk group were enriched in apoptosis, cell adhesion, pathways in cancer, hypoxia etc. Immune cells were higher in high-risk group. Conclusion The present study showed the value of the 14-lncRNA signature in predicting survival of LGGs and these 14 lncRNAs could be further investigated to reveal more mechanisms involved in gliomas.


PeerJ ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
pp. e10418
Author(s):  
Xiongtao Yang ◽  
Guohui Wang ◽  
Runchuan Gu ◽  
Xiaohong Xu ◽  
Guangying Zhu

Background Lung cancer has the highest morbidity and mortality of cancers worldwide. Lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD) is the most common pathological subtype of lung cancer and surgery is its most common treatment. The dysregulated expression of DNA repair genes is found in a variety of cancers and has been shown to affect the origin and progression of these diseases. However, the function of DNA repair genes in surgically-treated LUAD is unclear. Methods We sought to determine the association between the signature of DNA repair genes for patients with surgical LUAD and their overall prognosis. We obtained gene expression data and corresponding clinical information of LUAD from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database. The differently expressed DNA repair genes of surgically-treated LUAD and normal tissues were identified using the Wilcoxon rank-sum test. We used uni- and multivariate Cox regression analyses to shrink the aberrantly expressed genes, which were then used to construct the prognostic signature and the risk score formula associated with the independent prognosis of surgically-treated LUAD. We used Kaplan–Meier and Cox hazard ratio analyses to confirm the diagnostic and prognostic roles. Two validation sets (GSE31210 and GSE37745) were downloaded from the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) and were used to externally verify the prognostic value of the signature. OSluca online database verifies the hazard ratio for the DNA repair genes by which the signature was constructed. We investigated the correlation between the signature of the DNA repair genes and the clinical parameters. The potential molecular mechanisms and pathways of the prognostic signature were explored using Gene Set Enrichment Analysis (GSEA). Results We determined the prognostic signature based on six DNA repair genes (PLK1, FOXM1, PTTG1, CCNO, HIST3H2A, and BLM) and calculated the risk score based on this formula. Patients with surgically-treated LUAD were divided into high-risk and low-risk groups according to the median risk score. The high-risk group showed poorer overall survival than the low-risk group; the signature was used as an independent prognostic indicator and had a greater prognostic value in surgically-treated LUAD. The prognostic value was replicated in GSE31210 and GSE37745. OSluca online database analysis shows that six DNA repair genes were associated with poor prognosis in most lung cancer datasets. The prognostic signature risk score correlated with the pathological stage and smoking status in surgically-treated LUAD. The GSEA of the risk signature in high-risk patients showed pathways associated with the cell cycle, oocyte meiosis, mismatch repair, homologous recombination, and nucleotide excision repair. Conclusions A six-DNA repair gene signature was determined using TCGA data mining and GEO data verification. The gene signature may serve as a novel prognostic biomarker and therapeutic target for surgically-treated LUAD.


2022 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Su Wang ◽  
Zhen Xie ◽  
Zenghong Wu

Background: Lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD) is the most common and lethal subtype of lung cancer. Ferroptosis, an iron-dependent form of regulated cell death, has emerged as a target in cancer therapy. However, the prognostic value of ferroptosis-related genes (FRGs)x in LUAD remains to be explored.Methods: In this study, we used RNA sequencing data and relevant clinical data from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) dataset and Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) dataset to construct and validate a prognostic FRG signature for overall survival (OS) in LUAD patients and defined potential biomarkers for ferroptosis-related tumor therapy.Results: A total of 86 differentially expressed FRGs were identified from LUAD tumor tissues versus normal tissues, of which 15 FRGs were significantly associated with OS in the survival analysis. Through the LASSO Cox regression analysis, a prognostic signature including 11 FRGs was established to predict OS in the TCGA tumor cohort. Based on the median value of risk scores calculated according to the signature, patients were divided into high-risk and low-risk groups. Kaplan–Meier analysis indicated that the high-risk group had a poorer OS than the low-risk group. The area under the curve of this signature was 0.74 in the TCGA tumor set, showing good discrimination. In the GEO validation set, the prognostic signature also had good predictive performance. Functional enrichment analysis showed that some immune-associated gene sets were significantly differently enriched in two risk groups.Conclusion: Our study unearthed a novel ferroptosis-related gene signature for predicting the prognosis of LUAD, and the signature may provide useful prognostic biomarkers and potential treatment targets.


2019 ◽  
Vol 21 (Supplement_3) ◽  
pp. iii5-iii5
Author(s):  
J Zhou ◽  
H Ma

Abstract BACKGROUND Credible prognostic stratification remains a challenge for neuroblastoma (NBL) with variable clinical manifestations. RNA expression signatures might predict the outcomes; notwithstanding, independent cross-platform validation is still rare. MATERIAL AND METHODS expression data were obtained from NBL patients and then analyzed. In TARGET-NBL data, an RNA-based prognostic signature was developed and validated. Survival prediction was assessed using a time-dependent receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve. Functional enrichment analysis of the RNAs was conducted using bioinformatics methods. RESULTS A total of 1,119 differentially expressed RNAs and 149 prognosis-related RNAs were identified sequentially. Then, in the training cohort, 12 RNAs were identified as significantly associated with overall survival (OS) and were combined to develop a model that stratified NBL patients into low- and high-risk groups. Twelve RNA signature high-risk patients had poorer OS in the training cohort (n = 105, Hazard Ratios (HR)= 0.10 (0.05–0.20), P < 0.001) and in the validation cohort (n = 44, HR = 0.25 (0.09–0.69), P = 0.008). ROC curve analysis also showed that both the training and validation cohorts performed well in predicting OS (12-month AUC values of 0.852 and 0.438, 36-month AUC values of 0.824 and 0.737, and 60-month AUC values of 0.802 and 0.702, respectively). Moreover, these 12 RNAs may be involved in certain events that are known to be associated with NBL through functional enrichment analysis. CONCLUSION This study identified and validated a novel 12-RNA prognostic signature to reliably distinguish NBL patients at low and high risk of death. Further larger, multicenter prospective studies are desired to validate this model.


2020 ◽  
Vol 38 (15_suppl) ◽  
pp. e16683-e16683
Author(s):  
Yue Li ◽  
Ximing Xu

e16683 Background: Hepatocellular carcinoma is the most common malignant tumor. Although the treatment of HCC has significantly improved, the 5-year survival rate is still only 18%. There is increasing evidence that tumor immune microenvironment (TIM) plays critical roles during cancer initiation and progression. Based on the comprehensive exploration of the immunogenomic, an immune-related risk model was constructed to predict hepatocellular carcinoma prognosis. Methods: Transcriptomic data of HCC patients were downloaded from the TCGA database, and the differentially expressed immune-related genes (IRGs) (FDR < 0.01, |log2fold change| > 2) were identified. Functional enrichment analysis was performed to explore potential molecular mechanisms of the differentially expressed IRGs. By univariate and multivariate Cox regression analysis, we identified eight prognosis-related IRGs. Based on the expression levels of IRGs, we constructed the immune-related risk model. The Kaplan‐Meier (K‐M) survival curves, ROC curves, univariate and multivariate analysis were used to evaluate the immune-related risk model. According to the risk score, HCC patients were stratified into low and high-risk groups. CIBERSORT was applied to analyze the profiling difference of infiltrating immune cells between the two groups. Results: A total of 113 differentially expressed IRGs were identified, of which nine IRGs were correlated with the prognosis of HCC patients. Functional enrichment analysis showed that these genes were involved in immune response and immune signal pathway. The immune-related risk model consisted of eight IRGs (FABP6, RBP2, MAPT, BIRC5, PLXNA3, CSPG5, IL17D and STC2). The immune risk score was an independent prognostic factor (HR, 2.63 [1.93−3.58]; P = 8.16E−10) and the patients with a high-risk score tended to have a shorter OS than those with a low-risk score. In the TCGA cohort, high-risk patients tended to have an advanced stage. Moreover, we found that the patients in the high-risk group had higher fractions of T follicular cells helper and macrophages M0. The patients with low-risk scores had higher fractions of CD8+ T cells and CD4+ T cells. Conclusions: We have identified the immune-related risk model of hepatocellular carcinoma based on the expression profiles of eight immune-related genes. This model could predict prognosis and reflect the tumor immune microenvironment of HCC patients, which can provide new insights in the individualized treatment of HCC and potential novel targets for immunotherapy.


2021 ◽  
Vol 39 (15_suppl) ◽  
pp. e12600-e12600
Author(s):  
Anna Adam-Artigues ◽  
Miguel Angel Beltran ◽  
Juan Antonio Carbonell-Asins ◽  
Sheila Zuñiga ◽  
Santiago Moragon ◽  
...  

e12600 Background: In early-stage HER2+ breast cancer (BC), escalation or de-escalation of systemic treatment is an unmet need. Integration of promising biomarkers into risk scoring will further help progressing in the field. We aim to develop a prognostic signature that integrates two miRNAs (A and B) and quantitative and qualitative clinical variables in patients diagnosed with HER2+ BC. Methods: This study was conducted in a retrospective cohort of 45 HER2+ BC patients. Patients received standard treatment for localized disease. We calculated a prognostic signature for disease-free survival (DFS) using principal components analysis for mixed data combining clinicopathological data (Ki67 and axillary lymph node [pN0, pN1, pN2, pN3]) and expression of two microRNAs (we used mir-16 as housekeeping). Multiple DFS prognostic signatures were calculated and goodness of fit was evaluated by means of Akaike’s Information Criterion (AIC) to perform Cox model selection. Signature was then dichotomized into “high risk” and “low risk” using maximally selected Log-Rank statistics by Hothorn and Lausen, as method for optimal cut-off. Kaplan-Meier curves, Log-Rank test and Breslow test were used to ascertain statistical differences in the probability of DFS between high and low risk groups. MiRNA targeted genes were selected and used to perform functional enrichment analysis with the KEGG pathway database. To select significant terms/pathways, p-values were adjusted by the Benjamini-Hochberg method (p < 0.05). Results: MiR-A and miR-B expression was higher in primary tumor of patients who relapse compared to those free of disease after treatment (p = 0.018 and 0.004, respectively). Both miRNAs were strongly correlated (r = 0.84). This signature was significantly associated with relapse of the disease (HR 1.72; CI 95%: 1.243–2.382; p < 0.01, AIC = 114.02). The optimal cut-off of this score was obtained and patients were classified into high and low risk groups. Median DFS of the high-risk was 44 months while it has been not reached yet across the low risk after a median follow-up of 67 months (HR 8.39; p = 0.005, AIC = 111.784). Significant differences in survival between both groups were found (log rank test p < 0.001; Breslow test p = 0.002). miR-A and miR-B functional enrichment analysis returned 55 significant pathways. Interestingly, P53 pathway, apoptosis and cell cycle which are closely related to tumorigenesis and treatment response, were in the top 5 enriched pathways. Conclusions: Both miRNAs included in this signature are related to important biological pathways associated to BC progression. Our new prognostic signature identifies patients with early-stage, HER2+ BC who might be candidates for escalated or de-escalated systemic treatment. This signature was able to classify patients for DFS in high or low risk groups at the moment of BC diagnosis. Further investigations to validate the value of this new signature are on-going.


2021 ◽  
Vol 39 (15_suppl) ◽  
pp. e16073-e16073
Author(s):  
Weitao Zhuang ◽  
Xiao-song Ben ◽  
Dan Tian ◽  
Zihao Zhou ◽  
Gang Chen ◽  
...  

e16073 Background: Esophageal squamous cell cancer (ESCC) is a malignant tumor with a poor 5-year relative survival. A prognosis prediction signature associated with DNA Damage Response (DDR) genes in ESCC was explored in this study. Methods: The clinical and gene expression profiles of ESCC patients were downloaded from the GEO and TCGA database. Univariate Cox regression and 1000 iterations of 10-fold cross-validation of LASSO Cox regression with binomial deviance minimization criteria were used to identify DDR genes as potential object and a prognostic signature for ESCC survival prediction, followed by validation of the signature via TCGA cohort and identification of independent prognostic predictors. A nomogram for prognosis prediction was built and Gene Set Enrichment Analysis (GSEA) was performed to further understand the underlying molecular mechanisms. Results: A signature of 8 DDR genes were constructed as being significantly associated with overall survival (OS) among patients with esophageal squamous cell carcinoma. The pronostic signature stratified ESCC patients into low- vs high-risk groups in terms of OS in the training set, testing set and the validation cohorts, and remained as an independent prognostic factor in multivariate analyses (hazard ratio (HR) in training set, 0.17 [95% CI, 0.09-0.35; P < 0 .001], HR in testing set, 0.38 [95% CI, 0.16-0.93; P = 0.029], HR in discovery cohort, 0.171 [95% CI, 0.03-0.48; P < 0 .001]) after adjusting for clinicopathological factors. The 8-DDR gene signature achieved a higher accuracy (C-index, 0.69; AUCs for 1-, 3- and 5-year OS, 0.74, 0.77 and 0.76, respectively) than 7 previously reported multigene signatures (C-index range, 0.53 to 0.60; AUCs range, 0.55to 0.66, 0.54 to 0.64 and 0.62 to 0.66, respectively) for estimation of survival in comparable cohorts. A nomogram incorporating tumor location, grade, adjuvant therapy and signature-based risk group showed better predictive performance for 1- and 3- year survival than for 5 year survival. Moreover, GSEA revealed that the DNA repair was more prominently enriched in the high-risk group while the low-risk group had not enrichment of any process (P > 0.05 for all). Conclusions: Taken together, our study identified 8 DDR genes related to the prognosis of ESCC patients, and constructed a robust prognostic signature to effectively stratify ESCC patients with different survival rates, which may help recognize high-risk patients potentially benefiting from more aggressive treatment.


2020 ◽  
Vol 2020 ◽  
pp. 1-16 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yun Zhong ◽  
Zhe Liu ◽  
Dangchi Li ◽  
Qinyuan Liao ◽  
Jingao Li

Background. An increasing number of studies have indicated that the abnormal expression of certain long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) is linked to the overall survival (OS) of patients with myeloma. Methods. Gene expression data of myeloma patients were downloaded from the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) database (GSE4581 and GSE57317). Cox regression analysis, Kaplan-Meier, and receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis were performed to construct and validate the prediction model. Single sample gene set enrichment (ssGSEA) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) analysis were used to predict the function of a specified lncRNA. Results. In this study, a seven-lncRNA signature was identified and used to construct a risk score system for myeloma prognosis. This system was used to stratify patients with different survival rates in the training set into high-risk and low-risk groups. Test set, the entire test set, the external validation set, and the myeloma subtype achieved the authentication of the results. In addition, functional enrichment analysis indicated that 7 prognostic lncRNAs may be involved in the tumorigenesis of myeloma through cancer-related pathways and biological processes. The results of the immune score showed that IF_I was negatively correlated with the risk score. Compared with the published gene signature, the 7-lncRNA model has a higher C-index (above 0.8). Conclusion. In summary, our data provide evidence that seven lncRNAs could be used as independent biomarkers to predict the prognosis of myeloma, which also indicated that these 7 lncRNAs may be involved in the progression of myeloma.


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susu Zheng ◽  
Xiaoying Xie ◽  
Xinkun Guo ◽  
Yanfang Wu ◽  
Guobin Chen ◽  
...  

Pyroptosis is a novel kind of cellular necrosis and shown to be involved in cancer progression. However, the diverse expression, prognosis and associations with immune status of pyroptosis-related genes in Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) have yet to be analyzed. Herein, the expression profiles and corresponding clinical characteristics of HCC samples were collected from the Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) databases. Then a pyroptosis-related gene signature was built by applying the least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) Cox regression model from the TCGA cohort, while the GEO datasets were applied for verification. Twenty-four pyroptosis-related genes were found to be differentially expressed between HCC and normal samples. A five pyroptosis-related gene signature (GSDME, CASP8, SCAF11, NOD2, CASP6) was constructed according to LASSO Cox regression model. Patients in the low-risk group had better survival rates than those in the high-risk group. The risk score was proved to be an independent prognostic factor for overall survival (OS). The risk score correlated with immune infiltrations and immunotherapy responses. GSEA indicated that endocytosis, ubiquitin mediated proteolysis and regulation of autophagy were enriched in the high-risk group, while drug metabolism cytochrome P450 and tryptophan metabolism were enriched in the low-risk group. In conclusion, our pyroptosis-related gene signature can be used for survival prediction and may also predict the response of immunotherapy.


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