Research Paper Volume 12, Issue 14 pp 14863—14884

Comprehensive analysis of m6A regulators prognostic value in prostate cancer

Guangjie Ji1, , Cong Huang1, , Shiming He1, , Yanqing Gong1, , Gang Song1, , Xuesong Li1, , Liqun Zhou1, ,

  • 1 Department of Urology, Peking University First Hospital, Institute of Urology, Peking University, National Urological Cancer Center of China, Beijing, China

Received: March 5, 2020       Accepted: June 4, 2020       Published: July 25, 2020      

https://doi.org/10.18632/aging.103549
How to Cite

Copyright: © 2020 Ji et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Abstract

Background: N6-methyladenosine (m6A) is the most prevalent RNA modification. While the role of m6A in prostate cancer remains unknown. We aim to measure the effects of m6A methylation regulatory genes during the development and progression of prostate cancer.

Methods: We collected transcriptome information and gene-level alteration data from The Cancer Genome Atlas datasets. The log-rank test and Cox regression model were used to examine the prognosis value of m6A methylation regulatory genes of prostate cancer.

Results: We discovered that most of m6A methylation regulators were highly expressed in aggressive prostate cancer. Univariable and multivariable Cox regression results showed that the expression of Insulin-like growth factor 2 mRNA-binding protein 3 (IGF2BP3), Heterogeneous nuclear ribonucleoproteins A2/B1 (HNRNPA2B1) and N6-adenosine-methyltransferase non-catalytic subunit (METTL14) and copy number variant of AlkB Homolog 5 (ALKBH5) were considerably associated with a recurrence-free survival of prostate cancer. Furthermore, a high level of m6A methylation in mRNA promotes the progression of prostate cancer via regulating subcellular protein localization.

Conclusion: Patients with a high level of mRNA methylation resulted from overexpression of reader proteins and methyltransferase complexes had poor survival benefits through influencing protein subcellular location in prostate cancer.

Abbreviations

m6A: N6-methyladenosine; CNV: Copy Number Variant; RFS: Recurrence-Free Survival; ROC: Receiver Operating Characteristic; AUC: Area Under Curve; TCGA: The Cancer Genome Atlas.