Sarcomatoid-associated gene risk index for clear cell renal cell carcinoma

You Zuo; Shuai Fu; Zhongwei Zhao; Zeyan Li; Yijian Wu; Tienan Qi; Jianguo Zheng; Qinglong Du; Zhonghua Xu; Nengwang Yu

doi:10.3389/fgene.2022.985641

Sarcomatoid-associated gene risk index for clear cell renal cell carcinoma

Front Genet. 2022 Sep 8:13:985641. doi: 10.3389/fgene.2022.985641. eCollection 2022.

Authors

You Zuo^{1

2}, Shuai Fu³, Zhongwei Zhao¹, Zeyan Li², Yijian Wu^{1

2}, Tienan Qi^{1

2}, Jianguo Zheng^{1

2}, Qinglong Du^{1

2}, Zhonghua Xu¹, Nengwang Yu¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Urology, Qilu Hospital of Shandong University, Jinan, Shandong, China.
² Cheeloo College of Medicine, Shandong University, Jinan, Shandong, China.
³ Department of Medical Oncology, Shandong Cancer Hospital and Institute, Shandong First Medical University and Shandong Academy of Medical Sciences, Jinan, China.

Abstract

Sarcomatoid renal cell carcinoma is a de-differentiated form of kidney cancer with an extremely poor prognosis. Genes associated with sarcomatoid differentiation may be closely related to the prognosis of renal cell carcinoma. The prognosis of renal cell carcinoma itself is extremely variable, and a new prognostic model is needed to stratify patients and guide treatment. Data on clear cell renal cell carcinoma with or without sarcomatoid differentiation were obtained from TCGA database, and a sarcomatoid-associated gene risk index (SAGRI) and column line graphs were constructed using sarcomatoid-associated genes. The predictive power of the SAGRI and column line graphs was validated using an internal validation set and an independent validation set (E-MTAB-1980). The SAGRI was constructed using four sarcoma-like differentiation-related genes, COL7A1, LCTL, NPR3, ZFHX4, and had a 1-year AUC value of 0.725 in the training set, 0.712 in the internal validation set, and 0.770 in the independent validation set for TCGA training cohort, with high model reliability. The molecular characteristics among the SAGRI subgroups were analyzed by multiple methods, and results suggested that the SAGRI-HIGH subgroup may benefit more from immunotherapy to improve prognosis. SAGRI satisfactorily predicted the prognosis of patients with clear cell renal cell carcinoma with or without sarcomatoid differentiation.

Keywords: TCGA; clear cell carcinoma; nomogram; prognosis; sarcomatoid renal cell carcinoma.