Pathway-based identification of a smoking associated 6-gene signature predictive of lung cancer risk and survival

  • Authors:
  • Nancy Lan Guo;Ying-Wooi Wan

  • Affiliations:
  • Department of Community Medicine, West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV 26506, USA and Mary Babb Randolph Cancer Center, West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV 26506, USA;Mary Babb Randolph Cancer Center, West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV 26506, USA and Lane Department of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering, West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV 2 ...

  • Venue:
  • Artificial Intelligence in Medicine
  • Year:
  • 2012

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Abstract

Objective: Smoking is a prominent risk factor for lung cancer. However, it is not an established prognostic factor for lung cancer in clinics. To date, no gene test is available for diagnostic screening of lung cancer risk or prognostication of clinical outcome in smokers. This study sought to identify a smoking associated gene signature in order to provide a more precise diagnosis and prognosis of lung cancer in smokers. Methods and materials: An implication network based methodology was used to identify biomarkers by modeling crosstalk with major lung cancer signaling pathways. Specifically, the methodology contains the following steps: (1) identifying genes significantly associated with lung cancer survival; (2) selecting candidate genes which are differentially expressed in smokers versus non-smokers from the survival genes identified in Step 1; (3) from these candidate genes, constructing gene coexpression networks based on prediction logic for the smoker group and the non-smoker group, respectively; (4) identifying smoking-mediated differential components, i.e., the unique gene coexpression patterns specific to each group; and (5) from the differential components, identifying genes directly co-expressed with major lung cancer signaling hallmarks. Results: A smoking-associated 6-gene signature was identified for prognosis of lung cancer from a training cohort (n=256). The 6-gene signature could separate lung cancer patients into two risk groups with distinct post-operative survival (log-rank P