Abstract
BackgroundThyroid carcinoma (TC) is the most common malignant endocrine tumor worldwide. Several studies have documented that male patients with TC have a higher rate of metastasis and disease recurrence than female patients. However, the mechanism underlying this observation is not completely clear. The goal of our research was to investigate the potential key candidate genes and pathways related to TC progression in male patients at the molecular level.MethodsA total of 320 samples were obtained from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and Genotype-Tissue Expression (GTEx) databases. Hub genes were screened out using weighted gene coexpression network analysis (WGCNA) and a protein–protein interaction (PPI) network analysis. Survival analysis was used to identify hub genes associated with disease-free survival (DFS) rates. Estimation of STromal and Immune cells in MAlignant Tumor tissues using Expression (ESTIMATE) data were used to assess the relationship between hub genes and immune cell infiltration. The molecular mechanism and biological functions of hub genes were explored using RT-qPCR, Western blot, Cell Counting Kit-8 Assay, flow cytometry, Transwell assays, and scratch assays.ResultsForty-seven hub genes were identified, and the survival analysis demonstrated that anti-silencing function 1B (ASF1B) was the sole independent risk factor for poor DFS in male TC patients. Possible associations between the results from the ESTIMATE analysis showed that the ASF1B expression level was related to the ESTIMATE score, immune score, and T-cell regulatory (Treg) infiltration level. Through in vitro cell function experiments, we verified that knockdown of ASF1B inhibited KTC-1 cell proliferation, promoted cell apoptosis, and blocked cell cycle. The silencing of ASF1B reduced protein kinase B (AKT), phospho-AKT (p-AKT), and forkhead box p3 (FOXP3) in KTC-1 cells. Moreover, FOXP3 overexpression markedly restored the cell migration, invasion, and proliferation abilities repressed by ASF1B knockdown.ConclusionsOur results indicate that ASF1B can be considered a prognostic marker, therapeutic target, and predictor of immunotherapy response in male thyroid cancer patients. However, further in-depth studies are required to validate this finding.
Highlights
Thyroid carcinoma (TC) is the most common malignant endocrine tumor worldwide [1, 2]
The results suggested that ASF1B might activate the PI3K/Akt signaling pathway through upregulating the p-Akt and Akt in male TC cells
By performing survival analyses of 47 hub genes using the univariate Cox analysis model, we demonstrated that male TC patients with high levels of ASF1B expression have a poor prognosis
Summary
Thyroid carcinoma (TC) is the most common malignant endocrine tumor worldwide [1, 2]. TC is three times more common in women than in men [3], male sex was found to be associated with a poor TC prognosis in multiple studies [4,5,6]. The mechanism responsible for this phenomenon is unclear. The above result could not explain opposite conclusions drawn from another study of female patients in Los Angeles county [10]. Several studies have documented that male patients with TC have a higher rate of metastasis and disease recurrence than female patients. The mechanism underlying this observation is not completely clear. The goal of our research was to investigate the potential key candidate genes and pathways related to TC progression in male patients at the molecular level
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