Jiang Qingkun, Xue Danfeng, Shi Fanzhe, Qiu Jiaxuan
Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, First Affiliated Hospital of Nanchang University, Nanchang, Jiangxi 330006, P.R. China.
Oncol Lett. 2021 Jan;21(1):29. doi: 10.3892/ol.2020.12290. Epub 2020 Nov 11.
Traditional clinicopathological indices are insufficient in predicting the prognosis of patients diagnosed with oral and oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC/OPSCC). Notably, autophagy and long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) regulate the development and progression of various types of cancer. The present study aimed to assess the association between autophagy-related lncRNAs and the prognosis of patients diagnosed with OSCC/OPSCC. Gene sequencing and clinicopathological data of patients with OSCC/OPSCC were downloaded from The Cancer Genome Atlas database, while gene set functional classification was downloaded from the Gene Set Enrichment Analysis database. Out of the 413 transcriptome data samples and 402 clinicopathological data samples retrieved, a total of nine autophagy-related lncRNAs, including PTCSC2, AC099850.3, LINC01963, RTCA-AS1, AP002884.1, UBAC2-AS1, AL512274.1, MIR600HG and AL354733.3, were screened. This was geared towards establishing a signature through gene co-expression network, univariate and Least Absolute Shrinkage and Selection Operator Cox regression analyses. Based on this signature, the patients were subdivided into a high-risk group and a low-risk group. Kaplan-Meier survival analysis revealed that the overall survival of the high-risk group was significantly lower than that of the low-risk group. Furthermore, principal components analysis demonstrated that the patients diagnosed with OSCC/OPSCC could be distinguished into low-survival and high-survival groups according to the signature. Univariate and multivariate Cox regression analyses of clinicopathological data and the signature revealed that the signature could potentially be used as an independent prognostic factor for OSCC/OPSCC. In addition, reverse transcription-quantitative PCR analysis of clinical samples demonstrated the validity of the signature. In summary, the present study revealed that the signature based on autophagy-related lncRNAs potentially acts as an independent prognostic indicator for patients with OSCC/OPSCC. Furthermore, it promotes research on targeted diagnosis and treatment of patients diagnosed with OSCC/OPSCC.
传统的临床病理指标在预测口腔和口咽鳞状细胞癌（OSCC/OPSCC）患者的预后方面存在不足。值得注意的是，自噬和长链非编码RNA（lncRNA）调节着各种类型癌症的发生和发展。本研究旨在评估自噬相关lncRNA与OSCC/OPSCC患者预后之间的关联。OSCC/OPSCC患者的基因测序和临床病理数据从癌症基因组图谱数据库下载，而基因集功能分类从基因集富集分析数据库下载。在检索到的413个转录组数据样本和402个临床病理数据样本中，共筛选出9种自噬相关lncRNA，包括PTCSC2、AC099850.3、LINC01963、RTCA-AS1、AP002884.1、UBAC2-AS1、AL512274.1、MIR600HG和AL354733.3。这旨在通过基因共表达网络、单变量和最小绝对收缩和选择算子Cox回归分析建立一个特征。基于该特征，将患者分为高风险组和低风险组。Kaplan-Meier生存分析显示，高风险组的总生存率显著低于低风险组。此外，主成分分析表明，根据该特征可以将诊断为OSCC/OPSCC的患者分为低生存率组和高生存率组。对临床病理数据和该特征进行单变量和多变量Cox回归分析显示，该特征有可能作为OSCC/OPSCC的独立预后因素。此外，对临床样本的逆转录定量PCR分析证明了该特征的有效性。总之，本研究表明基于自噬相关lncRNA的特征可能作为OSCC/OPSCC患者的独立预后指标。此外，它促进了对诊断为OSCC/OPSCC患者的靶向诊断和治疗的研究。
