Background
Tumor hypoxia is associated with metastasis and resistance to chemotherapy and radiotherapy. Genes involved in oxygen-sensing are clinically relevant and have significant implications for prognosis. In this study, we examined the pan-cancer prognostic significance of oxygen-sensing genes from the 2-oxoglutarate-dependent oxygenase family.
Methods
A multi-cohort, retrospective study of transcriptional profiles of 20,752 samples of 25 types of cancer was performed to identify pan-cancer prognostic signatures of 2-oxoglutarate-dependent oxygenase gene family (a family of oxygen-dependent enzymes consisting of 61 genes). We defined minimal prognostic gene sets using three independent pancreatic cancer cohorts (n = 681). We identified two signatures, each consisting of 5 genes. The ability of the signatures in predicting survival was tested using Cox regression and receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analyses.
Results
Signature 1 (
KDM8, KDM6B, P4HTM, ALKBH4, ALKBH7
) and signature 2 (
KDM3A, P4HA1, ASPH, PLOD1, PLOD2
) were associated with good and poor prognosis. Signature 1 was prognostic in 8 cohorts representing 6 cancer types (n = 2627): bladder urothelial carcinoma (
P
= 0.039), renal papillary cell carcinoma (
P
= 0.013), liver cancer (
P
= 0.033 and
P
= 0.025), lung adenocarcinoma (
P
= 0.014), pancreatic adenocarcinoma (
P
< 0.001 and
P
= 0.040), and uterine corpus endometrial carcinoma (
P
< 0.001). Signature 2 was prognostic in 12 cohorts representing 9 cancer types (n = 4134): bladder urothelial carcinoma (
P
= 0.039), cervical squamous cell carcinoma and endocervical adenocarcinoma (
P
= 0.035), head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (
P
= 0.038), renal clear cell carcinoma (
P
= 0.012), renal papillary cell carcinoma (
P
= 0.002), liver cancer (
P
< 0.001, P < 0.001), lung adenocarcinoma (
P
= 0.011), pancreatic adenocarcinoma (
P
= 0.002,
P
= 0.018,
P
< 0.001), and gastric adenocarcinoma (
P
= 0.004). Multivariate Cox regression confirmed independent clinical relevance of the signatures in these cancers. ROC curve analyses confirmed superior performance of the signatures to current tumor staging benchmarks.
KDM8
was a potential tumor suppressor down-regulated in liver and pancreatic cancers and an independent prognostic factor.
KDM8
expression was negatively correlated with that of cell cycle regul...