Development of a prognostic prediction model based on microRNA-1269a in esophageal cancer

BACKGROUND Esophageal cancer(ESCA)is a heterogeneous cancer with variable outcomes that are challenging to predict.MicroRNA(miR)-1269a is a newly discovered noncoding RNA that shows promising prognostic prediction in other cancers,but its clinical value in ESCA remains unclear.AIM To explore the relationship between miR-1269a and its clinical value and to develop a nomogram to succinctly display this relationship.METHODS We analyzed the expression of miR-1269a in 125 ESCA tissue samples with complete clinical data and 52 normal tissue samples.We determined the prognostic value of miR-1269a for overall survival(OS)and cancer-specific survival(CSS)and evaluated the association between miR-1269a and clinical variables including tumor location,histologic grade,metastatic stage,and American Joint Committee on Cancer(AJCC)stage using multivariate Cox analysis.Additionally,we developed a nomogram for OS and CSS based on miR-1269a expression using age and AJCC stage and assessed its prognostic performance.Using Gene Ontology and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Gene and Genomes analyses,we predicted the target genes of miR-1269a and analyzed their potential function in caner development.RESULTS The expression of miR-1269a was significantly higher in ESCA patients than healthy controls.Patients with high expression of miR-1269a showed poor prognosis in OS and CSS,suffered increased rates of low differentiation and metastasis,and exhibited tumor stage T3+T4,positive lymph stage,and AJCC stage III+IV.The area under the receiver operating characteristic curve of miR-1269a was 0.716 for OS and 0.764 for CSS.Multivariate Cox analysis revealed that AJCC stage and miR-1269a were independent factors for OS and CSS.Combing with age,we constructed a nomogram for prognostic prediction.Additionally,our nomogram showed excellent predictive performance for OS and CSS after 3 years and 5 years and was easy to use.Ultimately,the functional analysis suggested that miR-1269a was mostly involved in the PI3K-AKT signaling pathway.CONCLUSION miR-1269a can be used as a potential indicator for the prognosis of ESCA patients.We developed an easy-to-use nomogram with excellent ESCA prognostic prediction for clinical use.