Gene signature of m6A-related targets to predict prognosis and immunotherapy response in ovarian cancer

Abstract Purpose: The aim of the study was to construct a risk score model based on m6A-related targets to predict overall survival and immunotherapy response in ovarian cancer.Methods: The gene expression profiles of 24 m6A regulators were extracted. Survival analysis screened 9 prognostic m6A regulators. Next, consensus clustering analysis was applied to identify clusters of ovarian cancer patients. Furthermore, 47 phenotype-related differentially expressed genes, strongly correlated with 9 prognostic m6A regulators, were screened and subjected to univariate and the least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) cox regression. Ultimately, a nomogram was constructed which presented a strong ability to predict overall survival in ovarian cancer.Results: CBLL1, FTO, HNRNPC, METTL3, METTL14, WTAP, ZC3H13, RBM15B and YTHDC2 were associated with worse overall survival (OS) in ovarian cancer. Three m6A clusters were identified, which were highly consistent with the three immune phenotypes. What’s more, a risk model based on seven m6A-related targets was constructed with distinct prognosis. And the low-risk group are the best candidate population for immunotherapy. Conclusions: We comprehensively analyzed the m6A modification landscape of ovarian cancer and detected seven m6A-related targets as an independent prognostic biomarker for predicting survival. Furthermore, we divided patients into high- and low- risk groups with distinct prognosis and select the optimum population which may benefit from immunotherapy and constructed a nomogram to precisely predict ovarian cancer patients’ survival time and visualize the prediction results.