A six-gene prognostic predictor for patients with gastric cancer

Abstract

Differentially expressed genes and biological pathways are potential diagnostic biomarkers and therapeutic targets in gastric cancer. Yet few studies have used gene models for predicting patient prognosis. Here, we establish a multiple-gene signature to predict the prognosis of patients with gastric cancer. Using a robust likelihood-based survival model with data from the gene expression profiling dataset GSE62254, we built a six-gene signature (RBPMS2, HEYL, NES, TPMT, SMARCD3 and FAM127A) to be used to for prognostic prediction. This signature was able to divide a training set of patients into high- and low-risk groups, and patients in the high-risk group had significantly poorer survival outcomes compared with patients in the low-risk group. The six-gene signature was further validated with external validation sets of patient data. According to univariate and multivariate analyses, this six-gene signature and tumor stage can both be considered as independent prognostic indicators of patients with gastric cancer. In conclusion, we have established a six-gene signature as a prognostic predictor of patients with gastric cancer, providing new insights and novel biomarkers for gastric cancer prognosis, and possibly aiding in the discovery of novel therapeutic targets in clinical applications.