Abstract
Oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) is one of the most malignant diseases in the world, and the driver genes or signaling pathways remain unclear. This research integrated three OSCC microarray cohorts to screen the key candidate genes positively associated with OSCC progression. Differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were screened, and gene ontology (GO) and KEGG pathway mapping of DEGs identified enrichment in cell proliferation and cell migration procession. Moreover, the protein–protein interaction (PPI) network was constructed, and the submodules were analyzed with the Molecular Complex Detection Clustering Algorithm (MCODE). Core genes were validated and analyzed with GEPIA2, the Human protein atlas (HPA), and Gene Set Enrichment Analysis (GSEA). Fibronectin 1 (FN1) and Aurora Kinase A (AURKA) were the core genes of the two modules and interacted with each other. Further validation research demonstrated that FN1 and AURKA were highly expressed in OSCC tissues and were correlated with OSCC poor prognosis. Gene Set Enrichment Analysis (GSEA) showed that high expression of FN1 and AURKA was positively associated with the TGF-β, IL6/STAT3, and PI3K/AKT signaling pathways. Our results demonstrate that FN1 and AURKA play a central role in OSCC progression by promoting cell proliferation and migration processes and could be a diagnostic and therapeutic target for OSCC.
Highlights
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1.
FN1 and AURKA are screened out in OSCC through PPI module analysis.
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2.
FN1 and AURKA are highly expressed in OSCC and positively associated with poor prognosis.
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3.
FN1 and AURKA mainly regulate proliferation and metastasis of OSCC.
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Data availability statement
The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
Abbreviations
- HNSC:
-
Head and neck squamous cell carcinoma
- OSCC:
-
Oral squamous cell carcinoma
- NPC:
-
Nasopharynx cancer
- OPSCC:
-
Oropharynx squamous cell cancer
- DEGs:
-
Differentially expressed genes
- GO:
-
Gene ontology
- KEGG:
-
Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes
- PPI:
-
Protein–protein interaction
- MCODE:
-
Molecular Complex Detection Clustering Algorithm
- FN1:
-
Fibronectin 1
- AURKA:
-
Aurora Kinase A
- GSEA:
-
Gene Set Enrichment Analysis
- HPV:
-
Human papillomavirus
- GEO:
-
Gene Expression Omnibus
- DAVID:
-
Database for Annotation, Visualization, and Integrated Discovery
- GEPIA2:
-
Gene Expression Profiling Interactive Analysis 2
- HPA:
-
Human Protein Atlas
- TCGA:
-
The Cancer Genome Atlas
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This research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No.: 31860326); Joint Special Project of Yunnan Provincial Department of Science and Technology (Grant No.: 2018FE001-260); Yunnan Provincial Health Commission Medical Reserve Talent Training Program (Grant No.: H-2018087); Science and Technology Planning Project of Yunnan Provincial Department of Science and Technology (Grant No.: 2018FE001[-261]); the Yunnan Provincial Health Science and Technology Planning Project (Grant No.: 2017NS267) and Provincial Innovation Team for Multidisciplinary Diagnosis and Treatment of Complex Craniomaxillofacial Malformations in the Hospital of Stomatology Kunming Medical University (Grant No.: 202105AE160004).
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JX and YP conceived and designed the entire study; JX and SWL collected and analyzed the data, and they were responsible for data interpretation; JHW, LLY, SJM and YLL performed statistical analysis, literature research and data visualization; JX and SWL wrote the manuscript. YP revised it critically for important intellectual content. All authors have read and approved the final manuscript.
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Xu, J., Lu, S., Wu, J. et al. Identification of key genes in oral squamous cell carcinoma by integrated bioinformatics analysis. Biologia 77, 907–914 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11756-021-00998-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11756-021-00998-1