Construction of a Ferroptosis-Related Nine-lncRNA Signature for Predicting Prognosis and Immune Response in Hepatocellular Carcinoma

Ferroptosis is an iron-dependent cell death process that plays important regulatory roles in the occurrence and development of cancers, including hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Moreover, the molecular events surrounding aberrantly expressed long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) that drive HCC initiation and progression have attracted increasing attention. However, research on ferroptosis-related lncRNA prognostic signature in patients with HCC is still lacking. In this study, the association between differentially expressed lncRNAs and ferroptosis-related genes, in 374 HCC and 50 normal hepatic samples obtained from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA), was evaluated using Pearson’s test, thereby identifying 24 ferroptosis-related differentially expressed lncRNAs. The least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) algorithm and Cox regression model were used to construct and validate a prognostic risk score model from both TCGA training dataset and GEO testing dataset (GSE40144). A nine-lncRNA-based signature (CTD-2033A16.3, CTD-2116N20.1, CTD-2510F5.4, DDX11-AS1, LINC00942, LINC01224, LINC01231, LINC01508, and ZFPM2-AS1) was identified as the ferroptosis-related prognostic model for HCC, independent of multiple clinicopathological parameters. In addition, the HCC patients were divided into high-risk and low-risk groups according to the nine-lncRNA prognostic signature. The gene set enrichment analysis enrichment analysis revealed that the lncRNA-based signature might regulate the HCC immune microenvironment by interfering with tumor necrosis factor α/nuclear factor kappa-B, interleukin 2/signal transducers and activators of transcription 5, and cytokine/cytokine receptor signaling pathways. The infiltrating immune cell subtypes, such as resting memory CD4(+) T cells, follicular helper T cells, regulatory T cells, and M0 macrophages, were all significantly different between the high-risk group and the low-risk group as indicated in Spearman’s correlation analysis. Moreover, a substantial increase in the expression of B7H3 immune checkpoint molecule was found in the high-risk group. Our findings provided a promising insight into ferroptosis-related lncRNAs in HCC and a personalized prediction tool for prognosis and immune responses in patients.

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Development of a novel three-lncRNA immune-related signature as a prognostic indicator for hepatocellular carcinoma

10.21203/rs.2.23831/v1 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Bo Hu ◽

Xiao-Bo Yang ◽

Xinting Sang

Keyword(s):

Hepatocellular Carcinoma ◽

High Risk ◽

Risk Group ◽

Principal Component ◽

Enrichment Analysis ◽

High Risk Group ◽

Low Risk ◽

Gene Set Enrichment Analysis ◽

The Cancer Genome Atlas ◽

Testing Set

Abstract Background: Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the deadliest malignancies. Currently, there is still a lack of effective treatment. Our purpose was to develop an immune-related prognosis lncRNA signature with regard to HCC.Methods: A total of 14,142 lncRNAs and 331 immune genes were obtained from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and the Molecular Signatures Database to construct the immune-related lncRNAs co-expression networks. Moreover, the tumor samples collected from TCGA were randomized as training set and testing set, among which, the testing set and the entire set were used for verification. Subsequently, gene set enrichment analysis (GSEA) and principal component analysis (PCA) were employed for functional annotation.Results: An immune-related signature consisting of AC015908.3, AC068987.4 and AL365203.2 was identified among HCC patients. Under different conditions, patients in low-risk group exhibited longer overall survival (OS) than those in high-risk group (P < 0.001). Moreover, the as-constructed signature was an independent factor, which showed marked association with patient OS (P < 0.001, hazard ratio (HR) = 1.407). These findings were further validated in testing set and the entire set. Additionally, GSEA results revealed the different immune states between low-risk and high-risk groups. On the other hand, lncRNA-related mRNAs were also extracted to depict the networks.Conclusion: Our findings indicate that the three-lncRNA immune-related signature shows prognostic value for HCC.

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A Hypoxia-related LncRNA Signature Predicts Survival of Primary Lower-grade glioma

10.21203/rs.3.rs-335140/v1 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Yanjia Hu ◽

Jing Zhang ◽

Jing Chen

Keyword(s):

High Risk ◽

Risk Score ◽

Cox Regression ◽

Risk Group ◽

Enrichment Analysis ◽

High Risk Group ◽

Gene Set Enrichment Analysis ◽

Lower Grade ◽

Prognostic Signature ◽

Gene Set Enrichment

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.

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Identification of a Five-Autophagy-Related-lncRNA Signature as a Novel Prognostic Biomarker for Hepatocellular Carcinoma

Frontiers in Molecular Biosciences ◽

10.3389/fmolb.2020.611626 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 7 ◽

Author(s):

Xiaoyu Deng ◽

Qinghua Bi ◽

Shihan Chen ◽

Xianhua Chen ◽

Shuhui Li ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Hepatocellular Carcinoma ◽

High Risk ◽

Cox Regression ◽

Risk Group ◽

High Risk Group ◽

Gene Set Enrichment Analysis ◽

The Cancer Genome Atlas ◽

Prognostic Signature ◽

Prediction Ability ◽

Cox Regression Analysis

Although great progresses have been made in the diagnosis and treatment of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), its prognostic marker remains controversial. In this current study, weighted correlation network analysis and Cox regression analysis showed significant prognostic value of five autophagy-related long non-coding RNAs (AR-lncRNAs) (including TMCC1-AS1, PLBD1-AS1, MKLN1-AS, LINC01063, and CYTOR) for HCC patients from data in The Cancer Genome Atlas. By using them, we constructed a five-AR-lncRNA prognostic signature, which accurately distinguished the high- and low-risk groups of HCC patients. All of the five AR lncRNAs were highly expressed in the high-risk group of HCC patients. This five-AR-lncRNA prognostic signature showed good area under the curve (AUC) value (AUC = 0.751) for the overall survival (OS) prediction in either all HCC patients or HCC patients stratified according to several clinical traits. A prognostic nomogram with this five-AR-lncRNA signature predicted the 3- and 5-year OS outcomes of HCC patients intuitively and accurately (concordance index = 0.745). By parallel comparison, this five-AR-lncRNA signature has better prognosis accuracy than the other three recently published signatures. Furthermore, we discovered the prediction ability of the signature on therapeutic outcomes of HCC patients, including chemotherapy and immunotherapeutic responses. Gene set enrichment analysis and gene mutation analysis revealed that dysregulated cell cycle pathway, purine metabolism, and TP53 mutation may play an important role in determining the OS outcomes of HCC patients in the high-risk group. Collectively, our study suggests a new five-AR-lncRNA prognostic signature for HCC patients.

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Identification of A Novel Six Autophagy-Related Genes Signature for The Prognostic and A miRNA-Related Autophagy Predictor for Anti-PD-1 Therapy Responses in Prostate Cancer

10.21203/rs.3.rs-42552/v1 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Lei Wu ◽

Guojun Yue ◽

Wen Quan ◽

Qiong Luo ◽

Dongxu Peng ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Prostate Cancer ◽

High Risk ◽

Regression Model ◽

Risk Group ◽

Low Risk ◽

Gene Set Enrichment Analysis ◽

Differentially Expressed ◽

Prognostic Signature ◽

Potential Biomarker ◽

Risk Patients

Abstract Background: Autophagy is a highly conserved homeostatic process in the human body that is responsible for the elimination of aggregated proteins and damaged organelles. Several autophagy-related genes (ARGs) contribute to the process of tumorigenesis and metastasis of prostate cancer (PCa). Also, miRNAs have been proven to modulate autophagy by targeting some ARGs. However, their potential role in PCa still remains unclear.Methods: An univariate Cox proportional regression model was used to identify 17 ARGs associated with the overall survival (OS) of PCa. Then, a multivariate Cox proportional regression model was used to construct a 6 autophagy-related prognostic genes signature. Patients were divided into low-risk group and high-risk group using the median risk score as a cutoff value. High-risk patients had shorter OS than low-risk patients. Furthermore, the signature was validated by ROC curves. Regarding mRNA and miRNA, 12 differentially expressed miRNAs (DEMs) and 1073 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were detected via the GEO database. We found that miR-205, one of the DEMs, was negatively regulated the expression of ARG (NKX2-3). Based on STRING analysis results, we found that the NKX2-3 was moderately related to the part of genes among the 6 autophagy-related genes prognostic signature. Further, NKX 2-3 was significantly correlated with OS and some clinical parameters of PCa by cBioProtal. By gene set enrichment analysis (GSEA). Lastly, we demonstrated that the association between NKX2-3 and tumor mutation burden (TMB) and PDCD1 (programmed cell death 1) of PCa.Results: We identified that the six ARGs expression patterns are independent predictors of OS in PCa patients. Furthermore, our results suggest that ARGs and miRNAs are inter-related. MiR-205 was negatively regulated the expression of ARG (NKX2-3). Further analysis demonstrated that NKX2-3 may be a potential biomarker for predicting the efficacy of anti-PD-1 therapy in PCa.Conclusions: The current study may offer a novel autophagy-related prognostic signature and may identify a promising miRNA-ARG pathway for predicting the efficacy of anti-PD-1 therapy in PCa.

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Development and Validation of a Lncrnas-Based Nomogram for Survival Prediction in Neuroblastoma Patients

10.21203/rs.3.rs-448031/v1 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Yong Lv ◽

ShuGuang Jin ◽

Bo Xiang

Keyword(s):

High Risk ◽

Risk Score ◽

Cox Regression ◽

Validation Cohort ◽

Risk Group ◽

Enrichment Analysis ◽

High Risk Group ◽

Low Risk ◽

Gene Set Enrichment Analysis ◽

Gene Set Enrichment

Abstract BackgroundTreatment of neuroblastoma is evolving toward precision medicine. LncRNAs can be used as prognostic biomarkers in many types of cancer.MethodsBased on the RNA-seq data from GSE49710, we built a lncRNAs-based risk score using the least absolute shrinkage and selection operation (LASSO) regression. Cox regression, receiver operating characteristic curves were used to evaluate the association of the LASSO risk score with overall survival. Nomograms were created and then validated in an external cohort from TARGET database. Gene set enrichment analysis was performed to identify the significantly changed biological pathways. ResultsThe 16-lncRNAs-based LASSO risk score was used to separate patients into high-risk and low-risk groups. In GSE49710 cohort, the high-risk group exhibited a poorer OS than those in the low-risk group (P<0.001). Moreover, multivariate Cox regression analysis demonstrated that LASSO risk score was an independent risk factor (HR=6.201;95%CI:2.536-15.16). The similar prognostic powers of the 16-lncRNAs were also achieved in the external cohort and in stratified analysis. In addition, a nomogram was established and worked well both in the internal validation cohort (C-index=0.831) and external validation cohort (C-index=0.773). The calibration plot indicated the good clinical utility of the nomogram. Gene set enrichment analysis (GSEA) indicated that high-risk group was related with cancer recurrence, metastasis and inflammatory associated pathways.ConclusionThe lncRNA-based LASSO risk score is a promising and potential prognostic tool in predicting the survival of patients with neuroblastoma. The nomogram combined the lncRNAs and clinical parameters allows for accurate risk assessment in guiding clinical management.

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A New Ferroptosis-Related lncRNA Signature Predicts the Prognosis of Bladder Cancer Patients

Frontiers in Cell and Developmental Biology ◽

10.3389/fcell.2021.699804 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 9 ◽

Author(s):

Mei Chen ◽

Zhenyu Nie ◽

Yan Li ◽

Yuanhui Gao ◽

Xiaohong Wen ◽

...

Keyword(s):

High Risk ◽

Immune Status ◽

Risk Group ◽

Enrichment Analysis ◽

Risk Groups ◽

High Risk Group ◽

Low Risk ◽

Gene Set Enrichment Analysis ◽

Gene Set Enrichment ◽

Clinicopathological Variables

Background: Ferroptosis is closely related to the occurrence and development of cancer. An increasing number of studies have induced ferroptosis as a treatment strategy for cancer. However, the predictive value of ferroptosis-related lncRNAs in bladder cancer (BC) still need to be further elucidated. The purpose of this study was to construct a predictive signature based on ferroptosis-related long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) to predict the prognosis of BC patients.Methods: We downloaded RNA-seq data and the corresponding clinical and prognostic data from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database and performed univariate and multivariate Cox regression analyses to obtain ferroptosis-related lncRNAs to construct a predictive signature. The Kaplan-Meier method was used to analyze the overall survival (OS) rate of the high-risk and low-risk groups. Gene set enrichment analysis (GSEA) was performed to explore the functional differences between the high- and low-risk groups. Single-sample gene set enrichment analysis (ssGSEA) was used to explore the relationship between the predictive signature and immune status. Finally, the correlation between the predictive signature and the treatment response of BC patients was analyzed.Results: We constructed a signature composed of nine ferroptosis-related lncRNAs (AL031775.1, AL162586.1, AC034236.2, LINC01004, OCIAD1-AS1, AL136084.3, AP003352.1, Z84484.1, AC022150.2). Compared with the low-risk group, the high-risk group had a worse prognosis. The ferroptosis-related lncRNA signature could independently predict the prognosis of patients with BC. Compared with clinicopathological variables, the ferroptosis-related lncRNA signature has a higher diagnostic efficiency, and the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve was 0.707. When patients were stratified according to different clinicopathological variables, the OS of patients in the high-risk group was shorter than that of those in the low-risk group. GSEA showed that tumor- and immune-related pathways were mainly enriched in the high-risk group. ssGSEA showed that the predictive signature was significantly related to the immune status of BC patients. High-risk patients were more sensitive to anti-PD-1/L1 immunotherapy and the conventional chemotherapy drugs sunitinib, paclitaxel, cisplatin, and docetaxel.Conclusion: The predictive signature can independently predict the prognosis of BC patients, provides a basis for the mechanism of ferroptosis-related lncRNAs in BC and provides clinical treatment guidance for patients with BC.

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Identification and characterization of a 25-lncRNA prognostic signature for early recurrence in hepatocellular carcinoma

BMC Cancer ◽

10.1186/s12885-021-08827-z ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 21 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Yi Fu ◽

Xindong Wei ◽

Qiuqin Han ◽

Jiamei Le ◽

Yujie Ma ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Risk Factors ◽

High Risk ◽

Cox Regression ◽

Risk Group ◽

Enrichment Analysis ◽

Response Prediction ◽

Early Recurrence ◽

High Risk Group ◽

Gene Set Enrichment Analysis ◽

Prognostic Signature

Abstract Background Early recurrence is the major cause of poor prognosis in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) are deeply involved in HCC prognosis. In this study, we aimed to establish a prognostic lncRNA signature for HCC early recurrence. Methods The lncRNA expression profile and corresponding clinical data were retrieved from total 299 HCC patients in TCGA database. LncRNA candidates correlated to early recurrence were selected by differentially expressed gene (DEG), univariate Cox regression and least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) regression analyses. A 25-lncRNA prognostic signature was constructed according to receiver operating characteristic curve (ROC). Kaplan-Meier and multivariate Cox regression analyses were used to evaluate the performance of this signature. ROC and nomogram were used to evaluate the integrated models based on this signature with other independent clinical risk factors. Gene set enrichment analysis (GSEA) was used to reveal enriched gene sets in the high-risk group. Tumor infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) levels were analyzed with single sample Gene Set Enrichment Analysis (ssGSEA). Immune therapy response prediction was performed with TIDE and SubMap. Chemotherapeutic response prediction was conducted by using Genomics of Drug Sensitivity in Cancer (GDSC) pharmacogenomics database. Results Compared to low-risk group, patients in high-risk group showed reduced disease-free survival (DFS) in the training (p < 0.0001) and validation cohort (p = 0.0132). The 25-lncRNA signature, AFP, TNM and vascular invasion could serve as independent risk factors for HCC early recurrence. Among them, the 25-lncRNA signature had the best predictive performance, and combination of those four risk factors further improves the prognostic potential. Moreover, GSEA showed significant enrichment of “E2F TARGETS”, “G2M CHECKPOINT”, “MYC TARGETS V1” and “DNA REPAIR” pathways in the high-risk group. In addition, increased TILs were observed in the low-risk group compared to the high-risk group. The 25-lncRNA signature negatively associates with the levels of some types of antitumor immune cells. Immunotherapies and chemotherapies prediction revealed differential responses to PD-1 inhibitor and several chemotherapeutic drugs in the low- and high-risk group. Conclusions Our study proposed a 25-lncRNA prognostic signature for predicting HCC early recurrence, which may guide postoperative treatment and recurrence surveillance in HCC patients.

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A Novel Pyroptosis-related Genes Prognostic Signature Affects the Immune Infiltration Patterns in Hepatocellular Carcinoma

10.21203/rs.3.rs-1020197/v1 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Yiqun Jin ◽

Bai. Xue-song

Keyword(s):

Hepatocellular Carcinoma ◽

Immune Checkpoint ◽

Prognostic Value ◽

Cox Regression ◽

Risk Group ◽

Enrichment Analysis ◽

Low Risk ◽

Gene Set Enrichment Analysis ◽

Prognostic Signature ◽

Gene Set Enrichment

Abstract PurposePyroptosis is an inflammatory form of cell death associated with tumorigenesis and progression. However, the prognostic value of pyroptosis-related genes (PRGs) in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) have not been elucidated.MethodsWe downloaded mRNA expression profiles and clinical information from TCGA and ICGC database. Then, differently expressed PRGs were screened to construct a multigene prognostic signature by least absolute contraction and selection operator (LASSO) Cox regression method in TCGA cohort. Date from ICGC was used to validate the robustness of this signature. Kaplan-Meier analysis was used to compare overall survival (OS) between high- and low-risk group. Univariate and multivariate Cox analysis were performed to identify the independent prognostic value of the signature. Gene set enrichment analysis (GSEA) was utilized to conduct GO and KEGG analysis. Single-sample gene set enrichment analysis was implemented to assess the immune cell infiltration and immune-related function. TIDE algorithm evaluated the significance of this signature in predicting immunotherapeutic sensitivity. ResultsAn 8-PRGs prognostic model was established. The OS of low-risk group was significantly increased compared to high-risk group. Receiver operating characteristic curve showed the model had a good prognostic predictive accuracy. Cox regression analysis proved the model an independent predictor for OS in HCC. GSEA indicated that the risk score was associated with immune response. Furthermore, different subgroups exhibited different immunoinfiltration patterns, different immune-checkpoint levels and different potential responses for immune-checkpoint blockade therapy.ConclusionAn 8-PRGs signature can predict the prognosis of HCC patients and may act as an immunotherapeutic potential target for HCC.

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Identification of a novel six autophagy-related genes signature for the prognostic and a miRNA-related autophagy predictor for anti-PD-1 therapy responses in prostate cancer

BMC Cancer ◽

10.1186/s12885-020-07725-0 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 21 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Lei Wu ◽

Wen Quan ◽

Guojun Yue ◽

Qiong Luo ◽

Dongxu Peng ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Prostate Cancer ◽

High Risk ◽

Regression Model ◽

Risk Group ◽

Low Risk ◽

Gene Set Enrichment Analysis ◽

Differentially Expressed ◽

Prognostic Signature ◽

Potential Biomarker ◽

Risk Patients

Abstract Background Autophagy is a highly conserved homeostatic process in the human body that is responsible for the elimination of aggregated proteins and damaged organelles. Several autophagy-related genes (ARGs) contribute to the process of tumorigenesis and metastasis of prostate cancer (PCa). Also, miRNAs have been proven to modulate autophagy by targeting some ARGs. However, their potential role in PCa still remains unclear. Methods An univariate Cox proportional regression model was used to identify 17 ARGs associated with the overall survival (OS) of PCa. Then, a multivariate Cox proportional regression model was used to construct a 6 autophagy-related prognostic genes signature. Patients were divided into low-risk group and high-risk group using the median risk score as a cutoff value. High-risk patients had shorter OS than low-risk patients. Furthermore, the signature was validated by ROC curves. Regarding mRNA and miRNA, 12 differentially expressed miRNAs (DEMs) and 1073 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were detected via the GEO database. We found that miR-205, one of the DEMs, was negatively regulated the expression of ARG (NKX2–3). Based on STRING analysis results, we found that the NKX2–3 was moderately related to the part of genes among the 6 autophagy-related genes prognostic signature. Further, NKX 2–3 was significantly correlated with OS and some clinical parameters of PCa by cBioProtal. By gene set enrichment analysis (GSEA). Lastly, we demonstrated that the association between NKX2–3 and tumor mutation burden (TMB) and PDCD1 (programmed cell death 1) of PCa. Results We identified that the six ARGs expression patterns are independent predictors of OS in PCa patients. Furthermore, our results suggest that ARGs and miRNAs are inter-related. MiR-205 was negatively regulated the expression of ARG (NKX2–3). Further analysis demonstrated that NKX2–3 may be a potential biomarker for predicting the efficacy of anti-PD-1 therapy in PCa. Conclusions The current study may offer a novel autophagy-related prognostic signature and may identify a promising miRNA-ARG pathway for predicting the efficacy of anti-PD-1 therapy in PCa.

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Development of a Novel Autophagy-Related Prognostic Signature and Nomogram for Hepatocellular Carcinoma

Frontiers in Oncology ◽

10.3389/fonc.2020.591356 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 10 ◽

Author(s):

Qiongxuan Fang ◽

Hongsong Chen

Keyword(s):

Gene Expression ◽

Hepatocellular Carcinoma ◽

High Risk ◽

Cox Regression ◽

Risk Group ◽

High Risk Group ◽

Low Risk ◽

Gene Set Enrichment Analysis ◽

Regression Analyses ◽

Gene Model

BackgroundHepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the seventh most common malignancy and the second most common cause of cancer-related deaths. Autophagy plays a crucial role in the development and progression of HCC.MethodsUnivariate and Lasso Cox regression analyses were performed to determine a gene model that was optimal for overall survival (OS) prediction. Patients in the GSE14520 and GSE54236 datasets of the Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) were divided into the high-risk and low-risk groups according to established ATG models. Univariate and multivariate Cox regression analyses were used to identify risk factors for OS for the purpose of constructing nomograms. Calibration and receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves were used to evaluate model performance. Real-time PCR was used to validate the effects of the presence or absence of an autophagy inhibitor on gene expression in HepG2 and Huh7 cell lines.ResultsOS in the high-risk group was significantly shorter than that in the low-risk group. Gene set enrichment analysis (GSEA) indicated that the association between the low-risk group and autophagy- as well as immune-related pathways was significant. ULK2, PPP3CC, and NAFTC1 may play vital roles in preventing HCC progression. Furthermore, tumor environment analysis via ESTIMATION indicated that the low-risk group was associated with high immune and stromal scores. Based on EPIC prediction, CD8+ T and B cell fractions in the TCGA and GSE54236 datasets were significantly higher in the low-risk group than those in the high-risk group. Finally, based on the results of univariate and multivariate analyses three variables were selected for nomogram development. The calibration plots showed good agreement between nomogram prediction and actual observations. Inhibition of autophagy resulted in the overexpression of genes constituting the gene model in HepG2 and Huh7 cells.ConclusionsThe current study determined the role played by autophagy-related genes (ATGs) in the progression of HCC and constructed a novel nomogram that predicts OS in HCC patients, through a combined analysis of TCGA and gene expression omnibus (GEO) databases.

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