Identification of genes associated with spontaneous regression of neuroblastoma

Abstract

The study of target genes for the spontaneous regression phenomenon of neuroblastoma (NB) is still unclear. Common differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were identified by differential expression analysis in both public databases for the stage 4 death group and stage 4S survival group. The DEGs were ranked by constructing protein-protein interaction (PPI) network as well as calculating betweenness centrality (BC) values, and the relationship with NB prognosis was determined by performing univariate analysis, multifactor analysis, and lasso regression analysis on the top 10 genes and possibly correlated with spontaneous regression of NB. We identified a total of 173 DEGs, including 143 upregulated genes and 30 downregulated genes. PPI network showed a rich interaction between DEGs. We ranked the DEGs by calculating BC values and showed the top 10 genes, followed by univariate and multifactorial analyses, which showed that GRIA2, NTRK1, SCN9A, SLC18A2, CNR1, PIK3R1, and DGKB were associated with good prognosis, and CNR1 was the most closely associated with prognosis among them. By lasso regression analysis, we constructed a four-gene risk score formula. We drew a nomogram to use in clinical work and two newly identified genes associated with good prognosis in NB: CNR1 and GIRA2.