Considerable evidence indicates that autophagy plays a vital role in the biological processes of various cancers. The aim of this study is to evaluate the prognostic value of autophagy-related genes in patients with head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC). Transcriptome expression profiles and clinical data acquired from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database were analyzed by Cox proportional hazards model and Kaplan–Meier survival analysis to screen autophagy-related prognostic genes that were significantly correlated with HNSCC patients’ overall survival. Functional enrichment analyses were performed to explore biological functions of differentially expressed autophagy-related genes (ARGs) identified in HNSCC patients. Six ARGs (EGFR, HSPB8, PRKN, CDKN2A, FADD, and ITGA3) identified with significantly prognostic values for HNSCC were used to construct a risk signature that could stratify patients into the high-risk and low-risk groups. This signature demonstrated great value in predicting prognosis for HNSCC patients and was indicated as an independent prognostic factor in terms of clinicopathological characteristics (sex, age, clinical stage, histological grade, anatomic subdivision, alcohol history, smoking status, HPV status, and mutational status of the samples). The prognostic signature was also validated by data from the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) database and International Cancer Genome Consortium (ICGC). In conclusion, this study provides a novel autophagy-related gene signature for predicting prognosis of HNSCC patients and gives molecular insights of autophagy in HNSCC.

中文翻译：

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头颈部鳞状细胞癌患者自噬相关基因特征的预后相关性

大量证据表明，自噬在各种癌症的生物学过程中起着至关重要的作用。本研究的目的是评估自噬相关基因在头颈部鳞状细胞癌（HNSCC）患者中的预后价值。转录组表达谱和从癌症基因组图谱 (TCGA) 数据库获得的临床数据通过 Cox 比例风险模型和 Kaplan-Meier 生存分析进行分析，以筛选与 HNSCC 患者总生存显着相关的自噬相关预后基因。进行功能富集分析以探索在 HNSCC 患者中鉴定的差异表达的自噬相关基因 (ARG) 的生物学功能。六个 ARG（EGFR、HSPB8、PRKN、CDKN2A、FADD、和 ITGA3) 对 HNSCC 具有显着的预后价值，用于构建可以将患者分为高风险和低风险组的风险特征。该特征在预测 HNSCC 患者的预后方面具有重要价值，并被认为是临床病理特征（性别、年龄、临床分期、组织学分级、解剖学细分、酒精史、吸烟状况、HPV 状态和突变状态）方面的独立预后因素样本）。基因表达综合 (GEO) 数据库和国际癌症基因组联盟 (ICGC) 的数据也验证了预后特征。总之，本研究为预测​​ HNSCC 患者的预后提供了一种新的自噬相关基因特征，并提供了 HNSCC 中自噬的分子见解。