mRNA Network: Solution for Tracking Chemotherapy Insensitivity in Small-Cell Lung Cancer

Abstract

Background. Small-cell lung cancer (SCLC) has poor prognosis and is prone to drug resistance. It is necessary to search for possible influencing factors for SCLC chemotherapy insensitivity. Therefore, we proposed an mRNA network to track the chemotherapy insensitivity in SCLC. Methods. Six samples of patients with SCLC were recruited for RNA sequencing. TopHat2 and Cufflinks were used to make differential analysis. Functional analysis was applied as well. Finally, multidimensional validation was applied for verifying the results we obtained by experiment. Results. This study was a trial of drug resistance in 6 SCLC patients after first-line chemotherapy. The top 10 downregulated genes differentially expressed in the chemo-insensitive group were SERPING1, DRD5, PARVG, PRAME, NKX1-1, MCTP2, PID1, PLEKHA4, SPP1, and SLN. Cell-cell signaling by Wnt ( $p=6.98E-21$ ) was the most significantly enriched GO term in biological process, while systemic lupus erythematosus ( $p=6.97E-10$ ), alcoholism ( $p=1.01E-09$ ), and transcriptional misregulation in cancer ( $p=0.00227988$ ) were the top three ones of KEGG pathways. In multiple public databases, we also highlighted and verified the vital role of glycolysis/gluconeogenesis pathway and corresponding genes in chemo-insensitivity in SCLC. Conclusion. Our study confirmed some SCLC chemotherapy insensitivity-related genes, biological processes, and pathways, thus constructing the chemotherapy-insensitive network for SCLC.