ACLY is a prognostic biomarker of head and neck squamous carcinoma

Background: ATP-citrate lyase (ACLY) is considered to be a tumor promoter in multiple human cancers. However, the mechanism of ACLY in head and neck squamous carcinoma (HNSC) progression is unclear. Methods ACLY expression in pan-cancer was analyzed by combining TCGA and GTEx databases. The correlation between ACLY expression and HNSC patients’ prognosis were analyzed by Kaplan-Meier curve. The relationship between ACLY expression and clinicopathological features was investigated by Wilcoxon rank sum test and Kruskal-Wallis test. Independent prognostic factors were identified by univariate/multivariate cox regression analysis, ACLY-involved pathway was explored by gene set enrichment analysis (GSEA). Correlation between ACLY expression and immune cell infiltration in HNSC was analyzed in TCGA database. ACLY expression in HNSC cells was measured by qRT-PCR. Results ACLY expression was remarkably increased in HNSC tumor tissues. ROC curve showed that ACLY expression in HNSC had significant diagnostic ability (AUC = 0.865). High expression of ACLY could be used to predict poorer overall survival in HNSC patients, and ACLY was confirmed to be an independent prognostic indicator of HNSC. GSEA analysis obtained 5 pathways significantly associated with ACLY overexpression. In addition, ACLY expression in HNSC was also correlated with immune cell infiltration level. qRT-PCR also confirmed that ACLY expression was upregulated in HNSC cell lines. Conclusions ACLY might be a potential prognostic biomarker and therapeutic target for HNSC.