Development and validation of a lipogenic genes panel for diagnosis and recurrence of colorectal cancer

BACKGROUND & AIM: Accumulated evidence indicates that the elevation of lipid metabolism is an essential step in colorectal cancer (CRC) development, and analysis of the key lipogenic mediators may lead to identifying the new clinically useful prognostic gene signatures. METHODS: The expression pattern of 61 lipogenic genes was assessed between CRC tumors and matched adjacent normal tissues in a training set (n = 257) with the Mann-Whitney U test. Cox's proportional hazards model and the Kaplan–Meier method were used to identifying a lipogenic-biomarkers signature associated with the prognosis of CRC. The biomarkers signature was then confirmed in two independent validation groups, including a set of 223 CRC samples and an additional set of 203 COAD profiles retrieving from the Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA). RESULTS: Five genes, including ACOT8, ACSL5, FASN, HMGCS2, and SCD1, were significantly enhanced in CRC tumors. Using the cutoff value 0.493, the samples were classified into high risk and low risk. The AUC of panel for discriminating of all, early (I-II stages), and advanced CRC (III-IV stages) were 0.8922, 0.8446, and 0.9162 (Training set), along with 0.8800, 0.8205, and 0.7351 (validation set I), and 0.9071, 0.8946, and 0.9107 (Validation set II), respectively. There was a reverse correlation between the high predicted point of panel and worse OS of CRC patients in training set (HR (95% CI): 0.1096 (0.07089–0.1694), P < 0.001), validation set I (HR (95% CI): 0.3350 (0.2116–0.5304), P < 0.001), and validation set II (HR (95% CI): 0.1568 (0.1090–0.2257), P < 0.001). CONCLUSION: Our study showed that the panel of ACOT8/ACSL5/FASN/HMGBCS2/SCD1 genes had a better prognostic performance than validated clinical risk scales and is applicable for early detection of CRC and tumor recurrence.