A predicted risk score based on the expression of 16 autophagy-related genes for multiple myeloma survival

Autophagy has an important role in the pathogenesis of plasma cell development and multiple myeloma (MM); however, the prognostic role of autophagy-related genes (ARGs) in MM remains undefined. In the present study, the expression profiles of 234 ARGs were obtained from a Gene Expression Omnibus dataset (accession GSE24080), which contains 559 samples of patients with MM analyzed with 54,675 probes. Univariate Cox regression analysis identified 55 ARGs that were significantly associated with event-free survival of MM. Furthermore, a risk score with 16 survival-associated ARGs was developed using multivariate Cox regression analysis, including ATIC, BNIP3L, CALCOCO2, DNAJB1, DNAJB9, EIF4EBP1, EVA1A, FKBP1B, FOXO1, FOXO3, GABARAP, HIF1A, NCKAP1, PRKAR1A and SUPT20H, was constructed. Using this prognostic signature, patients with MM could be separated into high- and low-risk groups with distinct clinical outcomes. The area under the curve values for the receiver operating characteristic curves were 0.740, 0.741 and 0.712 for 3, 5 and 10 years prognosis predictions, respectively. Notably, the prognostic role of this risk score could be validated with another four independent cohorts (accessions: GSE57317, GSE4581, GSE4452 and GSE4204). In conclusion, ARGs may serve vital roles in the progression of MM, and the ARGs-based prognostic model may provide novel ideas for clinical applications in MM.