AUTHOR=Zhang Chuan , Dang Dan , Wang Hongrui , Shi Shuyou , Dai Jiayu , Yang Ming 

TITLE=Acircadian rhythm-related gene signature for predicting survival and drug response in HNSC

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Immunology

VOLUME=13

YEAR=2022

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/immunology/articles/10.3389/fimmu.2022.1029676

DOI=10.3389/fimmu.2022.1029676

ISSN=1664-3224

ABSTRACT=<p>Head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSC) represents one of the most common malignant carcinomas worldwide. Because the 5-year survival rate of patients with HNSC is poor, it is necessary to develop an effective signature for predicting the risk of HNSC. To identify a circadian rhythm (CR)-related predictive signature, we analyzed the RNA-seq data of patients with HNSC from The Cancer Genome Atlas and Gene Expression Omnibus cohorts. Nine CR-related genes (<italic>PER2</italic>, <italic>PER3</italic>, <italic>GHRL</italic>, <italic>CSF2</italic>, <italic>HDAC3</italic>, <italic>KLF10</italic>, <italic>PRKAA2</italic>, <italic>PTGDS</italic>, and <italic>RORB</italic>) were identified to develop a CR-related signature. The area under the curve values for 5-year overall survival were 0.681, 0.700, and 0.729 in the training set, validation set, and an external independent test set (GSE41613), respectively. The Kaplan‒Meier curve analysis showed that the high-risk group had a reduced relapse-free survival compared with the low-risk group in the training set, validation set, and test set (<italic>P</italic> &lt; 0.05). Finally, we observed that the CR-related gene signature was associated with the tumor immune microenvironment, somatic nucleotide variation, and drug response in HNSC. In conclusion, we developed a circadian rhythm-related gene signature for predicting overall survival in HNSC.</p>