Colorectal cancer (CRC) is one of the most common cancers and the second leading cause of cancer-related deaths. Discrepancies in clinical outcomes are observed even among patients with same-stage CRC due to molecular heterogeneity. Thus, biomarkers for predicting prognosis in CRC patients are urgently needed. We previously demonstrated that stage II CRC patients with NKX6.1 methylation had poor 5-year overall survival. However, the methylation frequency of NKX6.1 was only 23% in 151 pairs of CRC tissues. Thus, we aimed to develop a more robust prognostic panel for CRC using NKX6.1 in combination with three genes: LIM homeobox transcription factor 1α (LMX1A), sex-determining region Y-box 1 (SOX1), and zinc finger protein 177 (ZNF177). Through quantitative methylation analysis, we found that LMX1A, SOX1, and ZNF177 were hypermethylated in CRC tissues. LMX1A methylation was significantly associated with poor 5-year overall, and disease-free survivals in stage I and II CRC patients. Sensitivity and specificity analyses of the four-gene combination revealed the best sensitivity and optimal specificity. Moreover, patients with the four-gene methylation profile exhibited poorer disease-free survival than those without methylation. A significant effect of the four-gene methylation status on overall survival and disease-free survival was observed in early stage I and II CRC patients (p = 0.0016 and p = 0.0230, respectively). Taken together, these results demonstrate that the combination of the methylation statuses of NKX6.1, LMX1A, SOX1, and ZNF177 creates a novel prognostic panel that could be considered a molecular marker for outcomes in CRC patients.
Keywords: DNA methylation; LIM homeobox transcription factor 1α (LMX1A); NK6 homeobox 1 (NKX6.1); colorectal cancer (CRC); sex-determining region Y-box 1 (SOX1); zinc finger protein 177 (ZNF177).