Estudo de marcadores moleculares envolvidos no desenvolvimento do carcinoma de células escamosas oral: um estudo integrado com base em análise transcriptômica

Abstract

Oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) represents a major public health problem, with increasing incidence and mortality rates, especially in developing countries. With clinical detection often late and poor prognosis, its etiology is multifactorial, developing as a result of the interaction of multiple extrinsic and intrinsic factors, which still lack clarification. In recent years, bioinformatics has been used to study the molecular mechanisms of diseases by data mining at the molecular level and has discovered a large number of tumor markers that could be applied in clinical practice. High-throughput sequencing (RNA-seq) data has established a solid foundation for the identification of genes related to cancer prognosis. The objective of this study was to evaluate, through an integrative analysis of clinical and expression data, a scenario of intrinsic development of the CCEO. TCGA and GEO databases were chosen to track key genes, biomarkers, and significant pathways in oral cancer progression. In total, 324 samples of CCEO and 112 samples of normal tissue were included in the study. Differential expression analysis was performed using the Limma package for Rstudio and comparative analyzes were performed using the Interactivenn software. Then, the differentially expressed genes found were submitted to functional enrichment analysis and were related to cell adhesion processes, transendothelial migration, antigen processing and presentation, ABC transporters, MAPK signaling, circadian rhythm, and others. Correlations between overall patient survival and the expression of differentially expressed genes found were performed using univariate and multivariate analyses. A total of eleven candidate genes (C1S, ICAM1, ATP6V1C1, ABCA4, CTSB, PDGFA, PER1, PER3, BCL2, PPP2R3B, and ALDH4A1) closely related to the low survival rate of oral cancer patients were identified. In conclusion, the present study identified the prognostic signature of eleven genes in OSCC that could become potential prognostic markers and potential therapeutic targets for tumors. However, more research needs to be carried out to validate our results.