Comprehensive Analysis of the Roles and Prognostic Value of RNA-Binding Proteins in Head and Neck Squamous Cell Carcinoma

Abstract

Head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) is a malignancy with relatively high incidence and poor prognosis. RNA-binding proteins (RBPs) were reported to be dysregulated in multiple cancers and were closely associated with tumor initiation and progression. However, an integrated analysis of the roles of RBPs in HNSCC has not been conducted. In the present study, we obtained transcriptome data and corresponding clinical information of HNSCC patients from The Cancer Genome Atlas database and screened out differentially expressed RBPs between tumor and normal tissues. Subsequently, we utilized a series of bioinformatics analyses to elucidate the potential functions and prognostic value of these RBPs in HNSCC. As a result, a total of 88 aberrantly expressed RBPs were identified, including 63 downregulated and 25 upregulated RBPs. Functional enrichment analysis suggested that the differentially expressed RBPs mainly participated in mRNA metabolic processes, RNA processing, RNA transport, regulation of RNA stability, RNA degradation, and mRNA surveillance pathway. Three RBP genes (NOVA1, EZH2, and RBM24) were determined as prognosisrelated hub genes from which EZH2 and NOVA1 were selected to construct a prognostic signature based on LASSO Cox regression algorithm. Further analysis demonstrated that the high-risk patient group stratified by the risk signature has advanced tumor grade and poorer overall survival when compared with low-risk group. Moreover, univariate analysis showed that the risk score, tumor stage, T stage, and N stage were significantly associated with patient overall survival and the multivariate analysis results indicated that the risk score and age were greatly correlated with patient prognosis. Overall, this study provided a comprehensive landscape of RBPs in HNSCC and identified an effective gene signature for predicting the clinical outcomes of HNSCC patient, which may contribute to clinical decision making and individualized cancer treatment.

Development and validation of a hypoxia-related gene pair signature to predict overall survival in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma

“…In order to show that our prognostic model is superior to other models, we compared the HRGP prognostic signature with three published signatures [19][20][21], all data are from TCGA. As we thought, the cindex of the prognostic signature in this study was 0.684, and the HRGP prognostic signature was higher than the existing autophagy-related prognostic signature (c-index = 0.637), the immune-related gene prognostic signature (c-index = 0.592 ) and the RNA-binding protein-related gene prognostic signature (cindex = 0.57) have higher clinical application value.…”

LncRNA TM4SF19-AS1 exacerbates cell proliferation, migration, invasion, and EMT in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma via enhancing LAMC1 expression

“…RBPs are also associated with the prognosis of HNSCC. 29 Based on the previous experimental results, we speculated that TM4SF19-AS1 might interact with certain RBPs. HNRNPC has been pointed out to demonstrate high expression in HNSCC tissues.…”

RBM24 Mediates Lymph Node Metastasis and Epithelial-Mesenchymal Transition in Human Hypopharyngeal Squamous Cell Carcinoma by Regulating Twist1

“…RBM24 was identified as one downregulated gene in the LN metastasis group. Several members of RRM family have been reported to play vital role in cancer metastasis [ 25 , 26 ], and a bioinformatics study based on data from TCGA database suggested RBM24 might be a prognostic-related gene in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma [ 27 ]. But, the role of RBM24 in HSCC has not been expounded yet.…”