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Research Paper|Volume 12, Issue 1|pp 767—783

Six-gene signature for predicting survival in patients with head and neck squamous cell carcinoma

Juncheng Wang1, Xun Chen2, Yuxi Tian3, Gangcai Zhu4, Yuexiang Qin5, Xuan Chen6, Leiming Pi7, Ming Wei1, Guancheng Liu8, Zhexuan Li1, Changhan Chen1, Yunxia Lv9, Gengming Cai10
  • 1Department of Otolaryngology, Head and Neck Surgery, Xiangya Hospital, Central South University, Changsha 410008, People’s Republic of China
  • 2Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, First Affiliated Hospital of Quanzhou, Fujian Medical University, Quanzhou 362000, People’s Republic of China
  • 3Department of Oncology, Xiangya Hospital, Central South University, Changsha, 410008 People’s Republic of China
  • 4Department of Otolaryngology, Head and Neck Surgery, The Second Xiangya Hospital, Central South University, Changsha 410011, People’s Republic of China
  • 5Department of Health Management, The Third Xiangya Hospital, Central South University, Changsha 410011, People’s Republic of China
  • 6Department of Stomatology, Changzheng Hospital, Second Military Medcial University, Shanghai 200003, People’s Republic of China
  • 7Department of Otolaryngology, Head and Neck Surgery, HeYuan People's Hospital, Jinan University, He Yuan 517000, People’s Republic of China
  • 8Department of Otolaryngology, Head and Neck Surgery, Affiliated Hospital of Guilin University, Guilin 541000, People’s Republic of China
  • 9Department of Thyroid Surgery, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Nanchang University, Nanchang 330006, People’s Republic of China
  • 10Department of Otolaryngology, Head and Neck Surgery, First Affiliated Hospital of Quanzhou, Fujian Medical University, Quanzhou 362000, People’s Republic of China
* Equal contribution
Received: September 16, 2019Accepted: December 24, 2019Published: January 12, 2020
https://doi.org/10.18632/aging.102655

Copyright: © 2020 Wang 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

The prognosis of head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) patients remains poor. High-throughput sequencing data have laid a solid foundation for identifying genes related to cancer prognosis, but a gene marker is needed to predict clinical outcomes in HNSCC. In our study, we downloaded RNA Seq, single nucleotide polymorphism, copy number variation, and clinical follow-up data from TCGA. The samples were randomly divided into training and test. In the training set, we screened genes and used random forests for feature selection. Gene-related prognostic models were established and validated in a test set and GEO verification set. Six genes (PEX11A, NLRP2, SERPINE1, UPK, CTTN, D2HGDH) were ultimately obtained through random forest feature selection. Cox regression analysis confirmed the 6-gene signature is an independent prognostic factor in HNSCC patients. This signature effectively stratified samples in the training, test, and external verification sets (P < 0.01). The 5-year survival AUC in the training and verification sets was greater than 0.74. Thus, we have constructed a 6-gene signature as a new prognostic marker for predicting survival of HNSCC patients.