Open AccessHuman sperm-associated antigen 4 as a potential prognostic biomarker of lung squamous cell carcinoma
Author(s) -
Yongheng Wang,
Yao Tang,
Jianhui Li,
Danfang Wang,
Wenhan Li
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
journal of international medical research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.421
H-Index - 57
eISSN - 1473-2300
pISSN - 0300-0605
DOI - 10.1177/03000605211032807
Subject(s) - medicine , oncology , proportional hazards model , lung cancer , biomarker , survival analysis , cancer research , carcinoma , reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction , immunohistochemistry , gene expression , real time polymerase chain reaction , antigen , gene , immunology , biology , biochemistry
Objective Lung cancer (LC) is one of the most prevalent malignant tumors worldwide. As a subtype of LC, lung squamous cell carcinoma (LUSC) has a 5-year survival rate of less than 15%. In this study, we aimed to evaluate the prognostic value of a glycolysis-related gene signature in LUSC patients.Methods We obtained RNA-Seq data from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database. Prognosis-related genes were screened out by Gene Set Enrichment Analysis (GSEA) and Cox proportional regression models. Quantitative reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR) was used to verify the mRNA expression levels in relevant tissues.Results We found that sperm-associated antigen 4 (SPAG4) overexpression was an independent risk factor for overall survival (OS) in LUSC. Patients with high-risk scores had higher mortality rates than those with low-risk scores. Moreover, by using RT-qPCR, we validated that SPAG4 mRNA was overexpressed in LUSC tissue samples compared with their paired para-cancerous histological normal tissues.Conclusions Analysis of aberrantly overexpressed SPAG4 may provide a further useful approach to complement existing methods and predict prognosis in LUSC patients.