Published online Jul 16, 2023. doi: 10.12998/wjcc.v11.i20.4763
Peer-review started: January 4, 2023
First decision: April 3, 2023
Revised: April 11, 2023
Accepted: June 6, 2023
Article in press: June 6, 2023
Published online: July 16, 2023
Processing time: 174 Days and 6.9 Hours
Gastric cancer (GC) is one of the most common malignant tumors with poor prognosis in terms of advanced stage. However, the survival-associated biomarkers for GC remains unclear.
To investigate the potential biomarkers of the prognosis of patients with GC, so as to provide new methods and strategies for the treatment of GC.
RNA sequencing data from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database of STAD tumors, and microarray data from Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) database (GSE19826, GSE79973 and GSE29998) were obtained. The differentially expressed genes (DEGs) between GC patients and health people were picked out using R software (x64 4.1.3). The intersections were underwent between the above obtained co-expression of differential genes (co-DEGs) and the DEGs of GC from Gene Expression Profiling Interactive Analysis database, and Gene Ontology (GO) analysis, Kyoto Encyclopedia of Gene and Genome (KEGG) pathway analysis, Gene Set Enrichment Analysis (GSEA), Protein-protein Interaction (PPI) analysis and Kaplan-Meier Plotter survival analysis were performed on these DEGs. Using Immunohistochemistry (IHC) database of Human Protein Atlas (HPA), we verified the candidate Hub genes.
With DEGs analysis, there were 334 co-DEGs, including 133 up-regulated genes and 201 down-regulated genes. GO enrichment analysis showed that the co-DEGs were involved in biological process, cell composition and molecular function pathways. KEGG enrichment analysis suggested the co-DEGs pathways were mainly enriched in ECM-receptor interaction, protein digestion and absorption pathways, etc. GSEA pathway analysis showed that co-DEGs mainly concentrated in cell cycle progression, mitotic cell cycle and cell cycle pathways, etc. PPI analysis showed 84 nodes and 654 edges for the co-DEGs. The survival analysis illustrated 11 Hub genes with notable significance for prognosis of patients were screened. Furtherly, using IHC database of HPA, we confirmed the above candidate Hub genes, and 10 Hub genes that associated with prognosis of GC were identified, namely BGN, CEP55, COL1A2, COL4A1, FZD2, MAOA, PDGFRB, SPARC, TIMP1 and VCAN.
The 10 Hub genes may be the potential biomarkers for predicting the prognosis of GC, which can provide new strategies and methods for the diagnosis and treatment of GC.
Core Tip: Gastric cancer (GC) is one of the most common leading cause of death worldwide. The cases with advanced GC usually have poor prognosis. To date, the prognostic biomarkers of GC remain unclear. In this article, we investigated the co-expression of differential genes (co-DEGs) between GC tissues and normal tissues based on the data from Gene Expression Omnibus, Gene Expression Profiling Interactive Analysis and The Cancer Genome Atlas. By using bioinformatics analysis, the signal pathways of co-DEGs involvement in GC were identified, and 10 Hub biomarkers for the survival of GC were screened.