Identification of Genes in Patients for Predicting Ulcerative Colitis-Associated Colorectal Cancer

Abstract BackgroundUlcerative colitis (UC) has been considered as a risk factor for colorectal cancer (CRC). However, effective biomarkers for predicting UC-associated CRC are lacking. Therefore, it is necessary to screen biomarkers associated with UC-related CRC, which could be used to evaluate UC-associated CRC early, and provide possible mechanisms involved in UC-associated CRC. Efficient bioinformatics analysis could help us to explore potential biomarkers.MethodsTwo public datasets, including 44 UC without CRC samples and 17 UC-associated CRC samples were chosen from Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) database. Sva package was used to remove batch effects, and then we screened out differentially expressed genes (DEGs) with limma package. STRING and Cytoscape were used to achieve protein-protein interaction (PPI) network analysis. The survival curves between high and low gene expression were performed by log rank test based on the cancer genome atlas (TCGA) program. The expression of three identified hub genes was validated based on Oncomine. To validate the expression of three hub genes, we compared the expression of three hub genes between normal and colorectal cancer based on Oncomine.Results405 DEGs were identified, including 256 down-regulated genes and 149 up-regulated genes in UC-associated CRC tissues. 16 hub genes were identified. And among them, RPL6, RPL7, and RPL35 were related to poor prognosis of patients in survival analysis. Higher expression of RPL6, RPL7, and RPL35 was validated in CRC tissues based on Oncomine.ConclusionsOur study showed that overexpressed RPL6, RPL7, and RPL 35 may be potential tumor oncogenes and could act as a prognostic factor in clinical diagnosis and treatment.