scholarly journals m6A RNA Methylation Regulators Impact Prognosis and Tumor Microenvironment in Renal Papillary Cell Carcinoma

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lianze Chen ◽  
Baohui Hu ◽  
Xinyue Song ◽  
Lin Wang ◽  
Mingyi Ju ◽  
...  

Accumulating evidence has proven that N6-methyladenosine (m6A) RNA methylation plays an essential role in tumorigenesis. However, the significance of m6A RNA methylation modulators in the malignant progression of papillary renal cell carcinoma (PRCC) and their impact on prognosis has not been fully analyzed. The present research set out to explore the roles of 17 m6A RNA methylation regulators in tumor microenvironment (TME) of PRCC and identify the prognostic values of m6A RNA methylation regulators in patients afflicted by PRCC. We investigated the different expression patterns of the m6A RNA methylation regulators between PRCC tumor samples and normal tissues, and systematically explored the association of the expression patterns of these genes with TME cell-infiltrating characteristics. Additionally, we used LASSO regression to construct a risk signature based upon the m6A RNA methylation modulators. Two-gene prognostic risk model including IGF2BP3 and HNRNPC was constructed and could predict overall survival (OS) of PRCC patients from the Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) dataset. The prognostic signature-based risk score was identified as an independent prognostic indicator in Cox regression analysis. Moreover, we predicted the three most significant small molecule drugs that potentially inhibit PRCC. Taken together, our study revealed that m6A RNA methylation regulators might play a significant role in the initiation and progression of PRCC. The results might provide novel insight into exploration of m6A RNA modification in PRCC and provide essential guidance for therapeutic strategies.

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jin Chen ◽  
Ji He ◽  
Xiaolei Ma ◽  
Xia Guo

Abstract Background: RNA modification, such as methylation of N6 adenosine (m6A), plays a critical role in many biological processes. However, the role of m6A RNA modification in cervical cancer (CC) remains largely unknown. Methods: The present study systematically investigated the molecular signatures and clinical relevance of 20 m6A RNA methylation regulators (writers, erasers, readers) in CC. The mRNA expression and clinical significance of m6A-related genes were investigated using data from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and Genotype-Tissue Expression (GTEx) cervical cancer cohort. Mutations, copy number variation (CNV), differential expression, gene ontology analysis and the construction of a mRNA-microRNA regulatory network were performed to investigate the underlying mechanisms involved in the abnormal expression of m6A-related genes. Results: We found inclusive genetic information alterations among the m6A regulators and that their transcript expression levels were significantly associated with cancer hallmark-related pathways activity, such as the PI3K-AKT signaling pathway, microRNAs in cancer and the focal adhesion pathway, which were significantly enriched. Moreover, m6A regulators were found to be potentially useful for prognostic stratification and we identified FMR1 and ZC3H13 as potential prognostic risk oncogenes by LASSO regression. The ROC curves of 3, 5 and 10 years were 0.685, 0.726 and 0.741, respectively. The specificity for 3, 5 and 10 years were 0.598, 0.631 and 0.833, the sensitivity were 0.707, 0.752 and 0.811, respectively. Conclusions: Multivariable Cox regression analysis revealed that the risk score is an independent prognostic marker and can be used to predict the clinical and pathological features of CC.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jianfeng Huang ◽  
Wenzheng Chen ◽  
Changyu Chen ◽  
Tao Xiao ◽  
Zhigang Jie

Abstract BackgroundN6-methyladenosine (m6A) RNA modification plays an important role in regulating tumor microenvironment (TME) infiltration. However, the relationship between the expression pattern of m6A-related long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) and the immune microenvironment of gastric cancer (GC) is unclear. MethodsIn this study, 23 m6A-related lncRNAs were identified by Pearson’s correlation analysis and univariate Cox regression analysis. According to the expression of these lncRNAs, we identified two distinct molecular clusters by consensus clustering and compared the differences of the TME and enriched pathways between the two clusters. We further constructed a prognostic risk signature and verified it using The Cancer Genome Atlas training and testing cohorts. ResultsThe results showed that cluster 1 was associated with tumor-related and immune activation-related pathways. In addition, cluster 1 was also associated with higher ImmuneScore, StromalScore, and ESTIMATEScore. The results of the stratified survival analysis and independent prognosis analysis indicated that the risk signature is an independent prognostic indicator for patients with GC. In addition, it can effectively predict survival status in patients with different clinical characteristics. Furthermore, our risk model showed that low risk scores were significantly correlated with high expression of programmed death-1 (PD-1) and cytotoxic T-lymphocyte associated protein 4 (CTLA4), as well as sensitivity to chemotherapeutic drugs (e.g., paclitaxel and oxaliplatin). ConclusionsThis evidence contributes to our understanding of the regulation of TME infiltration by m6A-related lncRNAs and my lead to more effective immunotherapy and chemotherapy for patients with GC.


2021 ◽  
Vol 30 ◽  
pp. 096368972110550
Author(s):  
Jiarui Chen ◽  
Xingyu Liu ◽  
Qiuji Wu ◽  
Xueping Jiang ◽  
Zihang Zeng ◽  
...  

Chemokines exhibited complicated functions in antitumor immunity, with their expression profile and clinical importance of lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD) patients remaining largely undetermined. This study aimed to explore the expression patterns of chemokine family in LUAD and construct a predictive chemokine family-based signature. A total of 497 samples were downloaded from the Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) data portal as the training set, and the combination of 4 representative Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) datasets, including GSE30219, GSE50081, GSE37745, and GSE31210, were utilized as the validation set. A three gene-based signature was constructed using univariate and stepwise multivariate Cox regression analysis, classifying patients into high and low risk groups according to the overall survival. The independent GEO datasets were utilized to validate this signature. Another multivariate analysis revealed that this signature remained an independent prognostic factor in LUAD patients. Furthermore, patients in the low risk group featured immunoactive tumor microenvironment (TME), higher IPS scores and lower TIDE scores, and was regarded as the potential beneficiaries of immunotherapy. Finally, the role of risky CCL20 was validated by immunohistochemistry (IHC), and patients possessed higher CCL20 expression presented shorter overall survival ( P = 0.011).


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rujia Qin ◽  
Wen Peng ◽  
Xuemin Wang ◽  
Chunyan Li ◽  
Yan Xi ◽  
...  

Cutaneous melanoma (CM) is the leading cause of skin cancer deaths and is typically diagnosed at an advanced stage, resulting in a poor prognosis. The tumor microenvironment (TME) plays a significant role in tumorigenesis and CM progression, but the dynamic regulation of immune and stromal components is not yet fully understood. In the present study, we quantified the ratio between immune and stromal components and the proportion of tumor-infiltrating immune cells (TICs), based on the ESTIMATE and CIBERSORT computational methods, in 471 cases of skin CM (SKCM) obtained from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database. Differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were analyzed by univariate Cox regression analysis, least absolute shrinkage, and selection operator (LASSO) regression analysis, and multivariate Cox regression analysis to identify prognosis-related genes. The developed prognosis model contains ten genes, which are all vital for patient prognosis. The areas under the curve (AUC) values for the developed prognostic model at 1, 3, 5, and 10 years were 0.832, 0.831, 0.880, and 0.857 in the training dataset, respectively. The GSE54467 dataset was used as a validation set to determine the predictive ability of the prognostic signature. Protein–protein interaction (PPI) analysis and weighted gene co-expression network analysis (WGCNA) were used to verify “real” hub genes closely related to the TME. These hub genes were verified for differential expression by immunohistochemistry (IHC) analyses. In conclusion, this study might provide potential diagnostic and prognostic biomarkers for CM.


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Li Hu ◽  
Zhibin Han ◽  
Xingbo Cheng ◽  
Sida Wang ◽  
Yumeng Feng ◽  
...  

Glioblastoma multiform (GBM) is a malignant central nervous system cancer with dismal prognosis despite conventional therapies. Scientists have great interest in using immunotherapy for treating GBM because it has shown remarkable potential in many solid tumors, including melanoma, non-small cell lung cancer, and renal cell carcinoma. The gene expression patterns, clinical data of GBM individuals from the Cancer Genome Atlas database (TCGA), and immune-related genes (IRGs) from ImmPort were used to identify differentially expressed IRGs through the Wilcoxon rank-sum test. The association between each IRG and overall survival (OS) of patients was investigated by the univariate Cox regression analysis. LASSO Cox regression assessment was conducted to explore the prognostic potential of the IRGs of GBM and construct a risk score formula. A Kaplan–Meier curve was created to estimate the prognostic role of IRGs. The efficiency of the model was examined according to the area under the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve. The TCGA internal dataset and two GEO external datasets were used for model verification. We evaluated IRG expression in GBM and generated a risk model to estimate the prognosis of GBM individuals with seven optimal prognostic expressed IRGs. A landscape of 22 types of tumor-infiltrating immune cells (TIICs) in glioblastoma was identified, and we investigated the link between the seven IRGs and the immune checkpoints. Furthermore, there was a correlation between the IRGs and the infiltration level in GBM. Our data suggested that the seven IRGs identified in this study are not only significant prognostic predictors in GBM patients but can also be utilized to investigate the developmental mechanisms of GBM and in the design of personalized treatments for them.


2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhi-Hao Yu ◽  
Shao-Ting Feng ◽  
Di Zhang ◽  
Xu-Chen Cao ◽  
Yue Yu ◽  
...  

Abstract Background N6-Methyladenosine (m6A) is the most common RNA modification and regulates RNA splicing, translation, translocation, and stability. Aberrant expression of m6A has been reported in various types of human cancers. m6A RNA modification is dynamically and reversibly mediated by different regulators, including methyltransferase, demethylases, and m6A binding proteins. However, the role of m6A RNA methylation regulators in thyroid cancer remains unknown. The aim of this study is to investigate the effect of the 13 main m6A RNA modification regulators in thyroid carcinoma. Methods We obtained clinical data and RNA sequencing data of 13 m6A RNA methylation regulators from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) THCA database. We performed consensus clustering to identify the clinical relevance of m6A RNA methylation regulators in thyroid carcinoma. Then we used LASSO Cox regression analysis to generate a prognostic signature based on m6A RNA modification regulator expression. Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes, Gene Ontology and Gene Set Enrichment Analyses were performed to explore differential cellular processes and signaling pathways between the two groups based on risk signature. Results We found that most of the m6A RNA modification regulators are down-regulated in 450 patients with thyroid carcinoma. We derived a three m6A RNA modification regulator genes-based risk signature (FTO, RBM15 and KIAA1429), that is an independent prognostic biomarker in patients with thyroid carcinoma. Moreover, we found that this risk signature could better predict outcome in male than female. Functional research in vitro demonstrated that the m6A RNA methylation regulators involved in the model acted significant role in the proliferation and migration of thyroid cancer cells. Conclusions Our study revealed the influence of m6A RNA methylation regulators on thyroid carcinoma through biological experiments and three-gene prognostic model.


2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sheng Zheng ◽  
Zizhen Zhang ◽  
Ning Ding ◽  
Jiawei Sun ◽  
Yifeng Lin ◽  
...  

Abstract Introduction Angiogenesis is a key factor in promoting tumor growth, invasion and metastasis. In this study we aimed to investigate the prognostic value of angiogenesis-related genes (ARGs) in gastric cancer (GC). Methods mRNA sequencing data with clinical information of GC were downloaded from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) databases. The differentially expressed ARGs between normal and tumor tissues were analyzed by limma package, and then prognosis‑associated genes were screened using Cox regression analysis. Nine angiogenesis genes were identified as crucially related to the overall survival (OS) of patients through least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) regression. The prognostic model and corresponding nomograms were establish based on 9 ARGs and verified in in both TCGA and GEO GC cohorts respectively. Results Eighty-five differentially expressed ARGs and their enriched pathways were confirmed. Significant enrichment analysis revealed that ARGs-related signaling pathway genes were highly related to tumor angiogenesis development. Kaplan–Meier analysis revealed that patients in the high-risk group had worse OS rates compared with the low-risk group in training cohort and validation cohort. In addition, RS had a good prognostic effect on GC patients with different clinical features, especially those with advanced GC. Besides, the calibration curves verified fine concordance between the nomogram prediction model and actual observation. Conclusions We developed a nine gene signature related to the angiogenesis that can predict overall survival for GC. It’s assumed to be a valuable prognosis model with high efficiency, providing new perspectives in targeted therapy.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jianxing Ma ◽  
Chen Wang

Abstract This study is to establish NMF (nonnegative matrix factorization) typing related to the tumor microenvironment (TME) of colorectal cancer (CRC) and to construct a gene model related to prognosis to be able to more accurately estimate the prognosis of CRC patients. NMF algorithm was used to classify samples merged clinical data of differentially expressed genes (DEGs) of TCGA that are related to the TME shared in The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) datasets, and survival differences between subtype groups were compared. By using createData Partition command, TCGA database samples were randomly divided into train group and test group. Then the univariate Cox analysis, Lasso regression and multivariate Cox regression models were used to obtain risk model formula, which is used to score the samples in the train group, test group and GEO database, and to divide the samples of each group into high-risk and low-risk groups, according to the median score of the train group. After that, the model was validated. Patients with CRC were divided into 2, 3, 5 subtypes respectively. The comparison of patients with overall survival (OS) and progression-free survival (PFS) showed that the method of typing with the rank set to 5 was the most statistically significant (p=0.007, p<0.001, respectively). Moreover, the model constructed containing 14 immune-related genes (PPARGC1A, CXCL11, PCOLCE2, GABRD, TRAF5, FOXD1, NXPH4, ALPK3, KCNJ11, NPR1, F2RL2, CD36, CCNF, DUSP14) can be used as an independent prognostic factor, which is superior to some previous models in terms of patient prognosis. The 5-type typing of CRC patients and the 14 immune-related genes model constructed by us can accurately estimate the prognosis of patients with CRC.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ran Wei ◽  
Jichuan Quan ◽  
Shuofeng Li ◽  
Zhao Lu ◽  
Xu Guan ◽  
...  

Abstract Background: Cancer stem cells (CSCs), which are characterized by self-renewal and plasticity, are highly correlated with tumor metastasis and drug resistance. To fully understand the role of CSCs in colorectal cancer (CRC), we evaluated the stemness traits and prognostic value of stemness-related genes in CRC.Methods: In this study, the data from 616 CRC patients from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) were assessed and subtyped based on the mRNA expression-based stemness index (mRNAsi). The correlations of cancer stemness with the immune microenvironment, tumor mutational burden (TMB) and N6-methyladenosine (m6A) RNA methylation regulators were analyzed. Weighted gene co-expression network analysis (WGCNA) was performed to identify the crucial stemness-related genes and modules. Furthermore, a prognostic expression signature was constructed using Lasso-penalized Cox regression analysis. The signature was validated via multiplex immunofluorescence staining of tissue samples in an independent cohort of 48 CRC patients.Results: This study suggests that high mRNAsi scores are associated with poor overall survival in stage Ⅳ CRC patients. Moreover, the levels of TMB and m6A RNA methylation regulators were positively correlated with mRNAsi scores, and low mRNAsi scores were characterized by increased immune activity in CRC. The analysis identified 2 key modules and 34 key genes as prognosis-related candidate biomarkers. Finally, a 3-gene prognostic signature (PARPBP, KNSTRN and KIF2C) was explored together with specific clinical features to construct a nomogram, which was successfully validated in an external cohort. Conclusions: There is a unique correlation between CSCs and the prognosis of CRC patients, and the novel biomarkers related to cell stemness could accurately predict the clinical outcomes of these patients.


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhentao Liu ◽  
Hao Zhang ◽  
Hongkang Hu ◽  
Zheng Cai ◽  
Chengyin Lu ◽  
...  

Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) is a devastating brain tumor and displays divergent clinical outcomes due to its high degree of heterogeneity. Reliable prognostic biomarkers are urgently needed for improving risk stratification and survival prediction. In this study, we analyzed genome-wide mRNA profiles in GBM patients derived from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) databases to identify mRNA-based signatures for GBM prognosis with survival analysis. Univariate Cox regression model was used to evaluate the relationship between the expression of mRNA and the prognosis of patients with GBM. We established a risk score model that consisted of six mRNA (AACS, STEAP1, STEAP2, G6PC3, FKBP9, and LOXL1) by the LASSO regression method. The six-mRNA signature could divide patients into a high-risk and a low-risk group with significantly different survival rates in training and test sets. Multivariate Cox regression analysis confirmed that it was an independent prognostic factor in GBM patients, and it has a superior predictive power as compared with age, IDH mutation status, MGMT, and G-CIMP methylation status. By combining this signature and clinical risk factors, a nomogram can be established to predict 1-, 2-, and 3-year OS in GBM patients with relatively high accuracy.


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