The Prognostic Role of m6A-Related Genes in Paediatric Neuroblastoma Patients

Abstract

Background and Purpose. N6-Methyladenosine (m6A) is the most abundant methylation modification form in eukaryotic mRNA. Nonetheless, the role of m6A-related genes in neuroblastoma (NB) is unclear. This study attempted to determine the prognostic role of m6A-related genes in NB patients. Methods. The gene expression data were extracted from the “Therapeutically Applicable Research to Generate Effective Treatments” (TARGET) database. The differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were identified, and the relationships between DEGs and m6A genes were explored. Then, the correlations among the m6A genes in neuroblastoma were investigated. Finally, the prognostic role of the m6A genes was studied, and the risk model was constructed. Results. 81 NB patients were extracted from the TARGET database. After comparing the gene expression between unfavorable and favorable outcome groups, 73 DEGs were identified, including 54 downregulated genes and 19 upregulated genes. In NB patients, we found that IGF2BP3, METTL14, and METTL16 are prognostic factors for disease-free survival (DFS) while IGF2BP3, METTL14, and METTL16 are prognostic factors for overall survival (OS). Besides, after the risk model construction, the OS between the two risk groups was drawn (log-rank $p=1.64e-08$ , $\text{HR}=3.438$ , 95% CI 2.24-5.278). The 1-, 3-, and 5-year time-dependent receiving operating characteristic (ROC) curves were also illustrated, and the areas under the receiver operating characteristic curves (AUCs) attained 0.75, 0.798, and 0.768, respectively. Conclusions. IGF2BP3, METTL14, and METTL16 were identified as the significant factors for DFS and OS in NB patients.