Increased expression of HIST1H1D in esophageal carcinoma predicts poor survival: A study base on TCGA database

Background: Expression level of HIST1H1D, a linker histone H1 gene, was reported to be associated with poor prognosis in some malignant tumors. Online database showed that HIST1H1D was increased in esophageal carcinoma. The current study aimed to evaluated the role of HIST1H1D in esophageal carcinoma using online data from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA). Methods. Wilcoxon signed-rank test, cox regression analysis and multivariant analysis were used to analyze the relationship between clinical characteristic and HIST1H1D expression level. Kaplan-Meier method was used to analyze the association of HIST1H1D and overall survival. Gene set enrichment analysis (GSEA) was used to identify HIST1H1D-related signaling pathway. Results. Compared to normal sample, HIST1H1D was significantly increased in esophageal carcinoma sample ( p =0.000). High HIST1H1D expression was associated with poor survival ( p =0.035). Univariate analysis showed that high HIST1H1D expression was associated with a poor overall survival (HR:1.19, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.05-1.34, p =0.01). Multivariate analysis indicated that HIST1H1D remained an independent prognostic predictor of overall survival (HR:1.18, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.02-1.36, p =0.03). GSEA revealed that alpha linolenic acid metabolism, arachidonic acid metabolism, histidine metabolism, vascular smooth muscle contraction, primary bile acid biosynthesis, phenylalanine metabolism and ether lipid metabolism were enriched in HIST1H1D high expression phenotype. Conclusions: HIST1H1D may sever as a potential prognostic predictor of poor survival in esophageal carcinoma. Lipid metabolism, histidine metabolism, vascular smooth muscle contraction, primary bile acid biosynthesis, phenylalanine metabolism and ether lipid metabolism may be the key signaling pathway regulated by HIST1H1D.