A four-hypoxia-genes-based prognostic signature for oral squamous cell carcinoma

Oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) is one of the most common maligancies of the head and neck. The prognosis was is significantly different among OSCC patients. This study aims to identify new biomarkers to establish a prognostic model to predict the survival of OSCC patients.

The mRNA expression and corresponding clinical information of OSCC patients were downloaded from The Cancer Genome Atlas and Gene Expression Omnibus. Additionally, a total of 26 hypoxia-related genes were also obtained from a previous study. Univariate Cox regression analysis and LASSO Cox regression analysis were performed to screen the optimal hypoxia-related genes which were associated with the prognosis of OSCC. to establish the predictive model (Risk Score) was established for estimating the patient's overall survival (OS). Multivariate Cox regression analysis was used to determine whether the Risk Score was an independent prognostic factor. Based on all the independent prognostic factors, nomogram was established to predict the OS probability of OSCC patients. The relative proportion of 22 immune cell types in each patient was evaluated by CIBERSORT software.

We determined that a total of four hypoxia-related genes including ALDOA, P4HA1, PGK1 and VEGFA were significantly associated with the prognosis of OSCC patients. The nomogram established based on all the independent factors could reliably predict the long-term OS of OSCC patients. In addition, our resluts indicated that the inferior prognosis of OSCC patients with high Risk Score might be related to the immunosuppressive microenvironments.

This study shows that high expression of hypoxia-related genes including ALDOA, P4HA1, PGK1 and VEGFA is associated with poor prognosis in OSCC patients, and they can be used as potential markers for predicting prognosis in OSCC patients.