Screening of prognostic biomarkers of oral squamous cell carcinoma and their correlation with immune infiltration
LIU Pengfei
XIN Lu
LI Yang
LIU Qiao
Abstract：Objective To screen prognostic biomarkers in oral squamous cell carcinoma(OSCC)by integrating multiple datasets and to investigate their correlation with immune infiltration.Methods We extracted OSCC-related datasets GSE9844,GSE30784,and GSE138206 from the Gene Expression Omnibus(GEO)platform,and identified differentially expressed genes(DEGs).The DEGs were then subjected to Gene Ontology(GO)functional annotation and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes(KEGG)pathway enrichment analysis to evaluate their potential molecular processes and pathways.STRING website was used to construct a protein-protein interaction network and MCODE plug-in of the Cytoscape software to identify HUB genes.The expression profile data of OSCC were extracted from The Cancer Genome Atlas website,and R tools were used to examine the expression of HUB genes.Receiver operating characteristic(ROC)curves were plotted to predict the diagnostic efficiency of key core genes in both normal and tumor tissues.R software package was used to analyze the expression of HUB genes in OSCC immune microenvironment and their correlation with 24 types of immune cells.Results A total of 231 DEGs were identified in the three datasets,including 173 upregulated DEGs and 58 downregulated DEGs.GO functional annotation analysis showed that DEGs were mainly enriched in the formation of extracellular matrix,virus defense response,type Ⅰ interferon signal pathways,and other processes.The results of KEGG pathway enrichment analysis showed that DEGs were mainly involved in extracellular matrix receptor interaction,amoeba infection,small cell lung cancer,focal adhesion,PI3K-Akt signal pathway,human papilloma virus infection,and other important signal pathways.MCODE plug-in calculated the largest set of HUB genes,including 18 HUB genes,of which only DDX60,XAF1,1SG15,and IFIT1 had the potential to be prognostic biomarkers for OSCC.High expression of DDX60 suggested a poor prognosis,while high expression of XAF1,ISG15,and IFIT1 suggested a good prognosis.ROC analysis results showed that DDX60,XAF1,ISG15,and IFIT1 had certain accuracy in predicting tumor and non-tumor,with ISG15 having very high diagnostic accuracy.ISG15 was significantly related to N stage and gender,while the high and low expression group of XAF1 had significant differences in gender and smoking,with gender being the most significant(P＜0.001).The expression of DDX60,XAF1,ISG15,and IFIT1 was positively correlated with the expression of most immune cells in OSCC immune microenvironment.Conclusion This study reveals potential biomarker combinations of OSCC from the public GEO database,providing a theoretical basis for clarifying the diagnosis,treatment and prognosis of OSCC.
Keywords：oral squamous cell carcinomaDDX60XAF1ISG15IFIT1immune infiltration
Publication Date：2024-10-28
Online Publishing Date：2026-08-26(First online date of this platform, not the publication date of the document)
Pages：9( 1110-1118 )