Clinical, Cosmetic and Investigational Dermatology (Dec 2020)

Development and Validation of an Immune-Related Gene Pair Signature in Skin Cutaneous Melanoma

  • Xie R,
  • Dong S,
  • Jiang J,
  • Yang C,
  • Li L,
  • Zhao S,
  • Li Y,
  • Wang C,
  • Li S,
  • Xiao Y,
  • Chen L

Journal volume & issue
Vol. Volume 13
pp. 973 – 986

Abstract

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Ran Xie,1,* Suwei Dong,2,* Jie Jiang,3 Conghui Yang,1 Lanjiang Li,4 Sheng Zhao,1 Yunlei Li,3 Chun Wang,1 Shujuan Li,1 Yanbin Xiao,2 Long Chen1 1PET/CT Center, Yunnan Cancer Hospital, The Third Affiliated Hospital of Kunming Medical University, Cancer Center of Yunnan Province, Kunming, Yunnan, People’s Republic of China; 2Second Orthopedic Ward, Yunnan Cancer Hospital, The Third Affiliated Hospital of Kunming Medical University, Cancer Center of Yunnan Province, Kunming, Yunnan, People’s Republic of China; 3Graduate School, Kunming Medical University, Kunming, Yunnan, People’s Republic of China; 4Department of Forensic Medicine, Kunming Medical University, Kunming, Yunnan, People’s Republic of China*These authors contributed equally to this workCorrespondence: Yanbin XiaoSecond Orthopedic Ward, Yunnan Cancer Hospital, The Third Affiliated Hospital of Kunming Medical University, Cancer Center of Yunnan Province, Kunming 650118, Yunnan, People’s Republic of ChinaEmail [email protected] ChenPET/CT Center, Yunnan Cancer Hospital, The Third Affiliated Hospital of Kunming Medical University, Cancer Center of Yunnan Province, Kunming 650118, Yunnan, People’s Republic of ChinaEmail [email protected]: Skin cutaneous melanoma (SKCM) is a common skin malignancy worldwide, and its metastasis and mortality rates are high. The molecular characteristics exhibited by tumor–immune interactions have drawn the attention from researchers. Therefore, increased knowledge and new strategies to identify effective immune-related biomarkers may improve the clinical management of SKCM by providing more accurate prognostic information.Patients and Methods: In this study, we established a prognostic immune-related gene pair (IRGP) signature for predicting the survival of SKCM patients. The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) databases provided gene expression profiles together with clinical information, and the samples were randomly divided into three groups including the training, testing, and validation datasets. The regression model of least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) helped to identify a 13-IRGP signature with a significant relation to the survival of SKCM patients.Results: The training, TCGA, and independent sets have an average value of area under the curve of 0.79, 0.76, and 0.82, respectively. In addition, this 13-IRGP signature can noticeably divide SKCM patients into high-risk group and low-risk group with significantly different prognoses. Many biological activities such as gene family were enriched among the genes in our IRGP signature. While analyzing the risk signature and clinical characteristics, there was a large difference in the risk score between T stage and tumor stage grouping. Finally, we constructed a nomogram and forest plots of the risk score and clinical features.Conclusion: In summary, we developed a robust 13-IRGP prognostic signature in SKCM, which can identify and provide new insights into immunological biomarkers.Keywords: skin cutaneous melanoma, TCGA, immune-related gene pair, signature, bioinformatic

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