Open AccessA 3-DNA methylation signature as a novel prognostic biomarker in patients with sarcoma by bioinformatics analysis
Author(s) -
Xiaowei Wang,
Qi Sun,
Shibin Xu,
Chao Xu,
Chenjie Xia,
Qingchun Zhao,
Huahui Zhang,
WeiQiang Tan,
Lei Zhang,
Shu-Dong Yao
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
medicine
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.59
H-Index - 148
eISSN - 1536-5964
pISSN - 0025-7974
DOI - 10.1097/md.0000000000026040
Subject(s) - medicine , dna methylation , biomarker , sarcoma , bioinformatics , oncology , methylation , computational biology , signature (topology) , dna , pathology , genetics , gene , gene expression , biology , geometry , mathematics
Background: Tumor-specific DNA methylation can potentially be a useful indicator in cancer diagnostics and monitoring. Sarcomas comprise a heterogeneous group of mesenchymal neoplasms which cause life-threatening tumors occurring throughout the body. Therefore, potential molecular detection and prognostic evaluation is very important for early diagnosis and treatment. Methods: We performed a retrospective study analyzing DNA methylation of 261 patients with sarcoma from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database. Cox regression analyses were conducted to identify a signature associated with the overall survival (OS) of patients with sarcoma, which was validated in a validation dataset. Results: Three DNA methylation signatures were identified to be significantly associated with OS. Kaplan–Meier analysis showed that the 3-DNA methylation signature could significantly distinguish the high- and low-risk patients in both training (first two-thirds) and validation datasets (remaining one-third). Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis confirmed that the 3-DNA methylation signature exhibited high sensitivity and specificity in predicting OS of patients. Also, the Kaplan–Meier analysis and the area under curve (AUC) values indicated that the 3-DNA methylation signature was independent of clinical characteristics, including age at diagnosis, sex, anatomic location, tumor residual classification, and histological subtypes. Conclusions: The current study showed that the 3-DNA methylation model could efficiently function as a novel and independent prognostic biomarker and therapeutic target for patients with sarcoma.