Research Paper Volume 13, Issue 5 pp 7397—7415
Prognostic significance of epigenetic regulatory gene expression in patients with non-small-cell lung cancer
- 1 Department of Thoracic Oncology, West China Hospital of Sichuan University, Chengdu 610041, Sichuan, P.R. China
- 2 West China Medical School, Sichuan University, Chengdu 610041, P.R. China
- 3 State Key Laboratory of Biotherapy and Cancer Center, West China Hospital, Sichuan University, Chengdu 610041, Sichuan, P.R. China
- 4 State Key Laboratory of Biotherapy/Collaborative Innovation Center for Biotherapy, West China Hospital, Sichuan University, Chengdu 610041, Sichuan, P.R. China
- 5 Global Infotech Software Limited Corporation, Chengdu 610041, Sichuan, P.R. China
Received: May 28, 2020 Accepted: November 8, 2020 Published: February 26, 2021
https://doi.org/10.18632/aging.202600How to Cite
Copyright: © 2021 Tu et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Abstract
In this study, we used public databases to investigate the prognostic significance of epigenetic regulatory gene expression in patients with non small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Oncomine database analysis showed that the mRNA levels of seven epigenetic regulatory genes, UHRF1, EZH2, TTF2, SUV39H2, PCNA, WHSC1 and RAD54L, genes were significantly upregulated in NSCLC patients as compared to normal lung tissues. Functional enrichment analysis of these seven genes showed that the most enriched GO terms were DNA repair and rhythmic process, whereas, the most enriched KEGG pathway was lysine degradation pathway. The mRNA and protein expression levels of UHRF1, EZH2, TTF2, WHSC1 and RAD54L significantly correlated with tumor stage in NSCLC patients. Moreover, NSCLC patients exhibiting higher UHRF1, EZH2, WHSC1 and RAD54L mRNA and protein expression levels had poorer progression-free survival and overall survival. These findings demonstrate that UHRF1, EZH2, WHSC1 and RAD54L are potential prognostic biomarkers to distinguish high-risk from low-risk NSCLC patients.
Abbreviations
NSCLC: non-small-cell lung cancer; LUAD: lung adenocarcinoma; LUSC: lung squamous cell carcinoma; PFS: progression-free survival; OS: overall survival; TCGA: The Cancer Genome Atlas; GO: gene ontology; KEGG: Kyoto encyclopedia of genes and genomes.