Determination of Eight Hub Genes and Functional Pathways Affecting both the Survival of Early- and Late-Stage Colon Cancer Patients

OBJECTIVEThe stage of colon cancer (CC) and therefore the level at which the treatment is initiated affects the survival of CC patients. In our study, we aimed to identify the common survival-related genes in both early-and late-stage CC patients.METHODSInformation on the demographic characteristics of 581 patients and microarray expression profiles (GSE39582) were obtained from the gene expression omnibus database. Survival analysis was per-formed using univariate and multivariate Cox regression methods with the help of R3.53 programming language and Kaplan-Meier graphics through the R software "Survival" package. ShinyGO v0.741 gene ontology enrichment analysis was performed to clarify the common and functional pathways related to both early-and late-stage CC cancer patients' data.RESULTSCox regression analysis indicated that overall survival and relapse-free survival of CC patients were strongly influenced by stage. Genes that significantly affect prognosis and survival in early-and late -stage CC patients were identified. As a result of gene enrichment analysis, arginine binding, oxidore-ductase activity, and methylcytosine dioxygenase activity and related eight hub genes (TM4SF5, NOS3, Ten eleven translocation [TET1], TET3, JMJD7, AKR1C1, prenylcysteine oxidase 1 like, Methionine sulfoxide reductase A) were identified.CONCLUSIONAccording to our results, it might be considered that developing new treatment strategies based on eight hub-genes related to arginine binding, oxidoreductase activity, and methylcytosine dioxygenase activity detected at different stages of CC might increase the success of targeted therapies.