Open Access

ARTICLE

HAND2-AS1, PRKAA2 and VLDLR predict the risk of peritoneal metastasis in gastric cancer of different Lauren types based on STEPP analysis

by HUI QU^1,2,3,4,#, RUICHUAN SHI^1,2,3,4,#, BOWEN YANG^1,2,3,4, XI CHEN^1,2,3,4, YUJIA SONG^1,2,3,4, LINGZI HE^1,2,3,4, YITING SUN^1,2,3,4, YUJING YANG^1,2,3,4, ZHI LI^1,2,3,4,*, XIUJUAN QU^1,2,3,4,*

1 Department of Medical Oncology, The First Hospital of China Medical University, Shenyang, 110001, China
2 Key Laboratory of Anticancer Drugs and Biotherapy of Liaoning Province, The First Hospital of China Medical University, Shenyang, 110001, China
3 Liaoning Province Clinical Research Center for Cancer, Shenyang, 110001, China
4 Key Laboratory of Precision Diagnosis and Treatment of Gastrointestinal Tumors, Ministry of Education, Shenyang, 110001, China
# These authors contributed equally to this work

* Corresponding Authors:XIUJUAN QU. Email: ; ZHI LI. Email:

BIOCELL 2022, 46(3), 721-735. https://doi.org/10.32604/biocell.2021.015867

Received 21 January 2021; Accepted 31 March 2021; Issue published 18 November 2021

Abstract

The peritoneum is the most common site of recurrence of gastric cancer (GC). Early occult peritoneal metastasis is difficult to detect by imaging examination. Stratifying the risk of peritoneal metastasis in patients with different Lauren subtypes is of great clinical value. We performed a univariate Cox regression to identify those genes with prognostic value of overall survival (OS) and peritoneal-specified disease-free survival (psDFS) from the Gene Expression Omnibus database. The candidate genes were screened by the Subpopulation Treatment Effect Pattern Plot (STEPP) method. Propensity score matching (PSM) analysis was used to reduce the interference of confounders on the results. Based on the optimal cut-off values determined by the STEPP method, we found overexpression of three genes (HAND2-AS1, PRKAA2, and VLDLR) was correlated with shorter 1-year psDFS among patients with diffuse-type than that of patients with intestinal-type GC, and it is highly significant. Gene Set Enrichment Analysis (GSEA) potentially suggested that the three genes promote the early occurrence of peritoneal metastasis in patients with diffuse-type GC through glucose metabolism-related pathways. These three genes may be potential biomarkers. They can be used to assess the risk of peritoneal metastases to guide treatment decisions and follow-up strategies.

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