CCTs as new biomarkers for the prognosis of head and neck squamous cancer

The chaperonin-containing T-complex protein 1 (CCT) subunits participate in diverse diseases. However, little is known about their expression and prognostic values in human head and neck squamous cancer (HNSC). This article aims to evaluate the effects of CCT subunits regarding their prognostic values for HNSC. We mined the transcriptional and survival data of CCTs in HNSC patients from online databases. A protein–protein interaction network was constructed and a functional enrichment analysis of target genes was performed. We observed that the mRNA expression levels of CCT1/2/3/4/5/6/7/8 were higher in HNSC tissues than in normal tissues. Survival analysis revealed that the high mRNA transcriptional levels of CCT3/4/5/6/7/8 were associated with a low overall survival. The expression levels of CCT4/7 were correlated with advanced tumor stage. And the overexpression of CCT4 was associated with higher N stage of patients. Validation of CCTs’ differential expression and prognostic values was achieved by the Human Protein Atlas and GEO datasets. Mechanistic exploration of CCT subunits by the functional enrichment analysis suggests that these genes may influence the HNSC prognosis by regulating PI3K-Akt and other pathways. This study implies that CCT3/4/6/7/8 are promising biomarkers for the prognosis of HNSC.