Expression of Four Autophagy-Related Genes Accurately Predicts the Prognosis of Gastrointestinal Cancer in Asian Patients

• Published in: Disease markers Vol. 2021; pp. 7253633 - 20
• Main Authors: Tang, Hua, Liang, Yinyin, Xu, Shuyu, Xia, Rong, Shen, Jiemiao, Zhang, Yuxin, Gong, Xing, Min, Yue, Zhang, Di, Zhao, Tie, Wang, Shoulin, Zhang, Yi, Wang, Chao
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Hindawi 26.08.2021; John Wiley & Sons, Inc; Hindawi Limited
• Subjects: Adolescent; Adult; Aged; Aged, 80 and over; Analysis; Asians - genetics; Autophagy; Autophagy-Related Proteins - genetics; Autophagy-Related Proteins - metabolism; Biomarkers, Tumor - genetics; Biomarkers, Tumor - metabolism; Cancer; Cancer patients; Cancer therapies; Chemotherapy; China - epidemiology; Colorectal cancer; CXCR4 protein; Development and progression; Evaluation; Female; Follow-Up Studies; Gastric cancer; Gastrointestinal cancer; Gastrointestinal Neoplasms - epidemiology; Gastrointestinal Neoplasms - genetics; Gastrointestinal Neoplasms - metabolism; Gastrointestinal Neoplasms - pathology; Gene expression; Gene Expression Regulation, Neoplastic; Genes; Genetic aspects; Humans; Kinases; Male; Medical prognosis; Middle Aged; Neuregulins - genetics; Neuregulins - metabolism; Oncology, Experimental; Ontology; Patients; Phagocytosis; Prognosis; Receptors, CXCR4 - genetics; Receptors, CXCR4 - metabolism; Regression analysis; Risk analysis; Risk groups; ROC Curve; Sequestosome-1 Protein - genetics; Sequestosome-1 Protein - metabolism; Software; Survival Rate; Survivin - genetics; Survivin - metabolism; Test sets; Training; Transcriptome; Tumors; Young Adult; China; Taiwan
• ISSN: 0278-0240; 1875-8630
• DOI: 10.1155/2021/7253633

Gastrointestinal (GI) cancers are among the most fatal diseases in the world. Numerous studies have demonstrated the relationship between autophagy and development of gastrointestinal cancers. However, whether autophagy-related genes can predict prognosis of GI cancers in individuals of Asian ancestry has not been defined. This study, evaluated the prognostic value of autophagy-related genes in gastrointestinal cancer. Expression profile of autophagy-related genes for 296 gastrointestinal cancer patients of Asian ancestry was downloaded from the TCGA database (TCGA-LIHC, TCGA-STAD, TCGA-ESCA, TCGA-PAAD, TCGA-COAD, TCGA-CHOL, and TCGA-READ). The prognostic value of the autophagy-related genes was evaluated using univariate Cox, LASSO, and multivariate Cox regression analyses. The risk score of the autophagy-related gene signature was calculated to assess its predictive prognostic value for GI cancers. Forty-seven differentially expressed autophagy-related genes, in Asian patients with gastrointestinal cancers, were identified. Of the 47 genes, 4 were associated with prognosis of GI cancer (SQSTM1, BIRC5, NRG3, and CXCR4). A prognostic model for GI cancer, based on the expression of the above 4 genes in the training set, showed that cancer patients were stratified into high-risk and low-risk groups (P<0.05). The utility of the model for overall survival (OS) of GI cancer patients was consistent across the entire set, training set, and test set (entire set: P=4.568×10−4; train set: P=5.718×10−3; test set: P=3.516×10−2). The sensitivity and specificity of the ROC curve of the above prognostic model in predicting the 5-year prognosis of GI cancer was satisfactory (entire set: 0.728; train set: 0.727; test set: 0.733). Analysis of clinical samples validated the overexpression of the 4 genes (SQSTM1, BIRC5, NRG3, and CXCR4) in tumor tissues relative to paired normal tissues, consistent with bioinformatic findings. Expression of the 4 autophagy-related genes (SQSTM1, BIRC5, NRG3, and CXCR4) can accurately predict the prognosis of gastrointestinal tumors in Asian patients.