ABSTRACT
Objective:To study the role of autophagy-associated gene regulation FK506 binding protein 1A (FKBP1A) in the regulation of head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC).Methods:TCGA was used to analyze the gene expression difference between HNSCC and normal tissues, and the DAVID was employed to perform functional annotation of differently expressed autophagy-associated genes enrichment in HNSCC. Univariate and multivariate Cox regression analysis was used to find genes that were meaningful for the prognosis of HNSCC patients in TCGA; the Gene Expression Comprehensive Database (GEO) was employed to verify the prognosis of the screened gene; the prognosis of HNSCC patients was analyzed by Kaplan-Meier Plotter.Results:Compared with the normal tissues samples, a total of 38 genes significantly changed in HNSCC tissues. These differential genes were mainly distributed in autophagy-associated pathways in biological processes (BP), cellular components (CC) and molecular functions (MF) in GO analysis. Univariate and multivariate Cox regression analysis found that 18 autophagy-associated genes were significantly correlated with the prognosis of HNSCC patients in the TCGA database. Among them, the high-risk genes were verified in the GEO database, and found that FKBP1A was closely related to the prognosis of HNSCC patients. Immunohistochemistry and quantitative reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) assays showed that the expression of FKBP1A in patients with HNSCC was higher than that of the corresponding adjacent tissues, and was closely related to the stage of HNSCC.Conclusions:This study used integrated bioinformatics methods to study the role of autophagy-associated genes in the occurrence and development of HNSCC. Moreover, the screened biomarker, FKBP1A, is closely related to the prognosis of HNSCC, and provide the theoretical basis for the pathogenesis and potential treatment of HNSCC.