Colon cancer develops according to a defined temporal sequence of genetic and epigenetic molecular events that may primarily affect cancer stem cells. In an attempt to identify new markers of such cells that would help predict patient outcome, we performed a comparative transcriptome analysis of colon cancer stem cells and normal colon stem cells. We identified 162 mRNAs, either over- or under-expressed. According to Cox multivariate regression with our set of 83 colorectal cancers, low expression of ABCB1, NEO1, tumor size and the presence of distant metastases were predictive factors for overall survival. Combined expression of ABCC1 and NEO1 was a significant predictor for overall survival in our cohort, which was confirmed by external validation in 221 colorectal cancers from the Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) portal. Tumor size, lymph node involvement and HIST1H2AE expression were also independently correlated with disease-free survival. Taken together, our results suggest that molecular markers of colorectal cancers ABCB1, NEO1 and HIST1H2AE are prognostic factors in colorectal cancer patients. It can be proposed that surveying expression of these marker genes should help better characterizing CRC prognosis, and help selecting the best therapeutic options.
Keywords: ABCB1; Colorectal cancer; HIST1H2AE; NEO1; cancer stem cell; prognostic factors; whole transcriptome analysis.
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