Clinical and prognostic significance of FBXL6 expression in ovarian cancer

Objective: Growing evidence indicates that F-box and leucine-rich repeat protein 6 (FBXL6) is associated with the progression of various cancers, including gastric cancer, hepatocellular carcinoma, and colorectal cancer. This study focuses on the prognostic significance of FBXL6 in OC.

Methods: Differential levels of FBXL6 in multiple cancers were evaluated using the TCGA and GSE26712 databases. We screened FBXL6-related differentially expressed genes using the GSE63885 dataset and conducted Gene Ontology and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes pathways analysis. The genes that associate with FBXL6 were screened using the "limma" package, the STRING database, and Cytoscape software, and the association was validated through Gene Expression Profiling Interactive Analysis. The potential substrates of FBXL6 were predicted using UbiBrowser2.0 database. FBXL6 protein levels in 84 OC samples were evaluated using immunohistochemistry. The prognostic significance of FBXL6 was explored using Kaplan-Meier and Cox regression analyses. Based on the Cox regression results, an FBXL6-based nomogram that can predict the overall survival (OS) rate were constructed. Moreover, we examined the net benefits and discriminative ability of the nomogram using the decision curve analysis (DCA), calibration plots, and receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve.

Results: FBXL6 was elevated in OC tissues, and the overexpression of FBXL6 was linked to poor prognosis in OC patients. The ROC and DCA curves indicated that the prognostic value of the FBXL6-based nomogram model was superior to that of FBXL6, age, and FIGO stage alone.

Conclusions: Elevated FBXL6 expression was an independent factor for OC, and an easily applied nomogram was developed to predict OS in OC patients.