A N7-Methylguanine-Related Gene Signature Applicable for the Prognosis and Microenvironment of Prostate Cancer

Wangli Mei; Xuyang Jia; Shiyong Xin; Xiang Liu; Liang Jin; Xianchao Sun; Jia-Xin Zhang; Bihui Zhang; Guosheng Yang; Ping Chen; Lin Ye

doi:10.1155/2022/8604216

A N⁷-Methylguanine-Related Gene Signature Applicable for the Prognosis and Microenvironment of Prostate Cancer

J Oncol. 2022 May 13:2022:8604216. doi: 10.1155/2022/8604216. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Wangli Mei^#^{1

2}, Xuyang Jia^#³, Shiyong Xin^{1

2}, Xiang Liu^{1

4}, Liang Jin², Xianchao Sun^{1

2}, Jia-Xin Zhang^{1

2}, Bihui Zhang^{1

2}, Guosheng Yang¹, Ping Chen⁵, Lin Ye^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Urology, Shanghai East Hospital, School of Medicine, Tongji University, Shanghai 200120, China.
² Department of Urology, Shanghai Tenth People's Hospital, School of Medicine, Tongji University, Shanghai 200072, China.
³ Department of Metabolic Surgery, Shanghai Tenth People's Hospital, School of Medicine, Tongji University, Shanghai 200072, China.
⁴ Department of Urology, Shanghai Putuo District People's Hospital, School of Medicine, Tongji University, Shanghai 200060, China.
⁵ School of Life Science and Technology, Tongji University, Shanghai 200092, China.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

Background: Despite the constant iteration of small-molecule inhibitors and immune checkpoint inhibitors, PRAD (prostate adenocarcinoma) patients with distant metastases and biochemical recurrence maintain a poor survival outcome along with an increasing morbidity in recent years. N⁷-Methylguanine, a new-found type of RNA modification, has demonstrated an essential role in tumor progression but has hardly been studied for its effect on prostate carcinoma. The current study aimed to seek m⁷G (N7-methylguanosine) related prognostic biomarkers and potential targets for PRAD treatment.

Methods: 42 genes related to m⁷G were collected from former literatures and GSEA (Gene Set Enrichment Analysis) website. Then, RNA-seq (RNA sequencing) and clinical data from TCGA-PRAD (The Cancer Genome Atlas-Prostate) cohort were retrieved to screen the differentially expressed m⁷G genes to further construct a multivariate Cox prognostic model for PRAD. Next, GSE116918, a prostate cancer cohort acquired from GEO (Gene Expression Omnibus) database, was analyzed for the external validation group to assess the ability to predict BFFS (biochemical failure-free survival) of our m⁷G prognostic signature. Kaplan-Meier, ROC (receiver operator characteristic), AUC (areas under ROC curve), and calibration curves were adopted to display the performance of this prognostic signature. In addition, immune infiltration analysis was implemented to evaluate the effect of these m⁷G genes on immunoinfiltrating cells. Correlation with drug susceptibility of the m⁷G signature was also analyzed by matching drug information in CellMiner database.

Results: The m⁷G-related prognostic signature, including three genes (EIF3D, EIF4A1, LARP1) illustrated superior prognostic ability for PRAD in both training and validation cohorts. The 5-year AUC were 0.768 for TCGA-PRAD and 0.608 for GSE116918. It can well distinguish patients into different risk groups of biochemical recurrence (p =1e-04 for TCGA-PRAD and p =0.0186 for GSE116918). Immune infiltration analysis suggested potential regulation of m⁷G genes on neutrophils and dendritic cells in PRAD.

Conclusions: A m⁷G-related prognostic signature was constructed and validated in the current study, giving new sights of m⁷G methylation in predicting the prognostic and improving the treatment of PRAD.