Background: Uveal melanoma is a highly malignant tumor in the eye. Its recurrence and metastasis are common, and the prognosis is poor.
Methods: The transcriptome data of UVM were downloaded from TCGA database, and the single cell sequencing dataset GSE139829 was downloaded from GEO database. Weighted co-expression network analysis was used to explore the modules associated with m7G. Lasso regression was used to construct M7G-related prognostic signature. Immune infiltration analysis was used to explore the significance of the model in the tumor immune microenvironment. Finally, cell assays were used to explore the function of key genes in the MUM-2B and OCM-1 cell lines of UVM.
Results: The prognostic signature was constructed by Cox regression and Lasso regression. Patients could be divided into high-risk group and low-risk group by this signature, and the high-risk group had worse prognosis (P<0.05). Cell experiments showed that the proliferation, invasion and migration ability of UVM cell lines were significantly decreased after the knockdown of PAG1, a key gene in signature, which proved that PAG1 might be a potential target of UVM.
Conclusions: Our study explored the significance of m7G in UVM, provided biomarkers for its diagnosis and treatment.
Keywords: N7-Methylguanosine; PAG1; immune microenvironment; single cell sequencing analysis; uveal melanoma.