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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Genet.
Sec. Cancer Genetics and Oncogenomics
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fgene.2025.1469610
This article is part of the Research Topic Screening and discovering novel biological biomarkers by omic-data to revolutionize tumor management View all 6 articles

Identification of Key Genes Underlying Radiosensitivity and Radioresistance in Endometrial Cancer Through Integrated Bioinformatics Analysis

Provisionally accepted
Chunhui Wan Chunhui Wan Lei Zhang Lei Zhang Ting Yu Ting Yu Hui Lu Hui Lu Han Xiao Han Xiao JUAN Du JUAN Du *
  • Wuhan Medical Center for Women and Children, Wuhan, China

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Although radiation therapy plays a crucial role in the treatment of endometrial cancer (UCEC), patients exhibit significant variability in radiosensitivity, which affects the therapeutic effect. Currently, there is scarcity of studies exploring the relationship between genes and radiosensitivity based on clinical data, and the underlying molecular mechanisms require further investigation. The present study aimed to reveal the molecular mechanisms underlying the differences between radiosensitivity and radioresistance in UCEC patients. A total of 12 radiosensitive and 20 radioresistant UCEC samples were included in the study. Differential expression analysis was conducted to screen for genes that were significantly different between the two groups, followed by the application of Lasso regression and a randomized survival forest model to identify key genes. Functional annotation, correlation analysis and survival analysis were performed on these key genes to reveal their roles in UCEC radiosensitivity and prognosis. The key genes were positively correlated with UCEC tumorigenesis-related genes in the radioresistant group, highlighting their significance in radioresistance. Additionally, a reduction in the proportion of Macrophages.M0 was observed in the radioresistant group, which was associated with a poor prognosis. GO and GSVA analyses revealed the biological processes and signaling pathways involved in the key genes. Among the key genes, the UCEC patients with high expression had poorer survival rates compared with low expression of MARCKS, MACC1, and GRB10, whereas the UCEC patients with high expression had higher survival rates and higher sensitivity to radiation therapy compared with low expression of NINJ2. This study contributes to a deeper understanding of the radiosensitivity of UCEC and provides theoretical support for the development of personalized radiotherapy regimens in clinical practice, which holds the potential to improve the prognosis and quality of life of patients.

    Keywords: endometrial cancer (UCEC), radiation therapy, radiosensitivity, radioresistance, Bioinformatics analysis

    Received: 24 Jul 2024; Accepted: 08 Jan 2025.

    Copyright: © 2025 Wan, Zhang, Yu, Lu, Xiao and Du. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: JUAN Du, Wuhan Medical Center for Women and Children, Wuhan, China

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.