Comprehensive Analysis of the Potential Prognostic Value of 11 Glycosylation-Related Genes in Head and Neck Squamous Cell Carcinoma and Their Correlation with PD-L1 Expression and Immune Infiltration

BACKGROUND: Head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) is one of the worst and most common malignant tumors. This study is aimed at studying the complex interaction between glycosylation-related genes and HNSCC. METHODS: The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) contains gene expression profile data of HNSCC and normal tissues, as well as patient survival and clinical data. Combining five glycosylation-related gene sets, bioinformatics was used to analyze the expression of glycosylation-related genes in TCGA-HNSCC datasets and to identify prognostic risk markers, analyze their prognostic value, and the influence of glycosylation-related genes on the tumor immune microenvironment. RESULTS: Gene expression profiles and corresponding clinical information of 499 cases of HNSCC and 44 cases of adjacent tissues were obtained. Using 11 glycosylation-related genes to construct a prognostic risk score, the Kaplan-Meier curve analysis found that the overall survival of the high-risk group was significantly different than that of the low-risk group (P < 0.001). ROC analysis was used to evaluate the prognostic efficacy of prognostic risk markers, and the results showed that the prognostic risk markers had good efficacy in predicting the prognosis of patients. We also found that there is a correlation between glycosylation-related genes, PD-L1, and immunocyte infiltration, and there is a dynamic effect between the change in the copy number of glycosylation-related genes and the number of tumor-infiltrating immune cells. CONCLUSIONS: Our research shows that glycosylation-related prognostic risk markers may be independent risk factors for the prognosis of HNSCC. We have found that there may be subtle links between glycosylation-related genes, PD-L1, and immunocyte infiltration, which has certain significance for exploring the occurrence and development of HNSCC and exploring the research of targeted therapy.