KEY TAKEAWAYS
- The study aimed to explore GARGs in patient heterogeneity and prognosis of HNSCC.
- The study identified HNSCC molecular subtypes and a prognostic signature from GARGs, vital for prognosis and treatment response assessment.
In Head and Neck Squamous Cell Carcinoma (HNSCC), irregular Golgi apparatus dynamics reshape the tumor microenvironment (TME) and immune landscape, influencing prognosis and treatment response. Aichun Zhang and the team aimed to explore how Golgi apparatus-related genes (GARGs) contribute to the heterogeneity and prognosis of HNSCC.
The study acquired transcriptional data and clinical information of HNSCC from public databases. They conducted differential expression analysis, survival analysis, immune infiltration analysis, immune therapy response assessment, consensus clustering, gene set enrichment analysis, and drug sensitivity analysis. Various machine learning (ML) algorithms were employed to construct a prognostic model based on GARGs.
They utilized a nomogram to integrate and visualize the multi-gene model with clinical pathological features.
About 321 GARGs exhibiting differential expression were identified, with 69 correlating with HNSCC prognosis. Utilizing these prognostic genes, two distinct molecular subtypes of HNSCC were distinguished, showcasing significant prognostic disparities. Moreover, a risk signature comprising 28 GARGs displayed promising efficacy in prognostic assessment for HNSCC. This signature effectively stratified HNSCC into high- and low-risk groups, highlighting notable variations in multiple clinicopathological characteristics such as survival outcome, grade, T stage, and chemotherapy response.
Immune response-related pathways were notably activated in the high-risk group with improved prognosis. Substantial discrepancies in chemotherapy drug sensitivity and immune therapy response were observed between the high- and low-risk groups, favoring the latter for immunotherapy. Riskscore, age, grade, and radiotherapy emerged as independent prognostic factors for HNSCC and were integrated into a nomogram with robust clinical utility.
The results showed that identifying molecular subtypes and a prognostic signature derived from GARGs in HNSCC offer valuable insights for assessing prognosis and treatment responses. Funding did not apply to the study.
Source: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38365684/
Zhang, A., He, X., Zhang, C. et al. (2024) ‘’Molecular subtype identification and prognosis stratification based on golgi apparatus-related genes in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma.’’ BMC Med Genomics 17, 53 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12920-024-01823-9.
