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Gregory J. Riely, MD, PhD
Gregory J. Riely, MD, PhD
Posted: Monday, July 29, 2024
Through the use of a novel smoking-related prognostic signature, the FCGBP gene has been identified as a potential diagnostic biomarker for patients with non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), according to a study published in Cancer Cell International. FCGBP may also be employed as an immunotherapy target and potentially improve clinical outcomes in this patient population, suggested Jiahai Shi, MD, of Affiliated Hospital of Nantong University, Jiangsu, China, and colleagues.
“To sum up, we built a prognostic risk model based on seven prognostic smoking-related genes, which can accurately evaluate the prognosis, immunotherapy, drug sensitivity, and tumor microenvironment of NSCLC patients,” stated the investigators.
Data from a total of 842 patients were collected for the study. Patients were stratified based on whether they were smokers (n = 736) or nonsmokers (n = 106) with NSCLC. After creating the seven-gene signature, patients were further stratified based on risk (high vs low). Analyses were performed to evaluate the relationship among the seven-gene signature and the tumor microenvironment, patient overall survival, drug sensitivity, and enriched molecular pathways.
The study authors identified 20 smoking-related genes, 7 of which were significantly associated with overall survival: CYP24A1, FCG, FCGBP, HPGD, LRRC31, S100P, and SPINK5. The seven-gene signature was found to have a stable ability to predict patient prognosis. In addition, the FCGBP gene was revealed to have the largest mutation frequency and had an increased extent of downregulation in smokers with NSCLC compared with nonsmokers. The knockdown of FCGBP led to increased proliferation, migration, and invasion of NSCLC-specific cells. Furthermore, patients in the high-risk group had significantly worse overall survival than patients in the low-risk group. Moreover, analyses of the tumor microenvironment showed increased tumor immune activation in patients in the low-risk group.
Disclosure: The study authors reported no conflicts of interest.
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