Long non-coding RNA FOXP4-AS1 is a prognostic biomarker and associated with immune infiltrates in ovarian serous cystadenocarcinoma.

BACKGROUND

FOXP4-AS1 expression participates in multiple signal pathways and has been previously reported in colorectal cancer, cervical cancer, and other cancer cells. However, its role on prognosis and immune infiltrates in ovarian serous cystadenocarcinoma (OVs) remains unclear. The purpose of our study was to investigate the expression of FOXP4-AS1 in OVs and its association with immune infiltrates, and determined its prognostic roles in OVs.

METHODS

Using The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database, we retrieved FOXP4-AS1 expression and clinical information for 376 patients with OVs. Wilcoxon rank sum test was used to compare the expression of FOXP4-AS1 in OVs and normal ovarian tissue. Logistic regression was used to analyze the relationship between clinicopathologic features and FOXP4-AS1. Gene Set Enrichment Analysis (GSEA), and single sample Gene Set Enrichment Analysis (ssGSEA) was conducted to investigate the enrich pathways and functions and quantify the extent of immune cells infiltration for FOXP4-AS1. Kaplan-Meier method was used to generate survival curves, and Cox regression was used to analyze the relationship between FOXP4-AS1 and survival rate.

RESULTS

High FOXP4-AS1 expression was significantly correlated with tumor FIGO stage (P = .026). Multivariate survival analysis showed that FOXP4-AS1was an independent prognostic marker for overall survival (OS; hazard ratio [HR]: 0.638; 95% confidence interval [CI]:0.467-0.871; P = .001) and disease-specific survival (DSS; HR: 0.649; CI: 0.476-0.885; P = .006). GSEA showed that High FOXP4-AS1 expression may active programmed cell death 1 (PD-1) signaling, the cytotoxic T lymphocyte-associated antigen-4 (CTLA4) pathway, the B cell receptor signaling pathway, apoptosis, fibroblast growth factor receptor (FGFR) signaling, and the Janus-activated kinase signal transducers and activators of transcription (JAK-STAT) signaling pathway. FOXP4-AS1 expression was negatively correlated with markers of immune cells, including aDC, cytotoxic cells and neutrophils.

CONCLUSION

High FOXP4-AS1 expression has the potential to be a prognostic molecular marker of favorable survival in OVs.