Identified a Disintegrin and Metalloproteinase with Thrombospondin Motifs 6 Serve as a Novel Gastric Cancer Prognostic Biomarker by Integrating Analysis of Gene Expression Profile

Abstract Objective: We aimed to explore the prognostic value of a disintegrin and metalloproteinase with thrombospondin motifs (ADAMTS) genes in gastric cancer (GC).Methods: The RNA-sequencing (RNA-seq) expression data for 351 GC patients and other relevant clinical data was acquired from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA). Survival analysis and a genome-wide gene set enrichment analysis (GSEA) were performed to define the underlying molecular value of the ADAMTS genes in GC development.Results: The Log rank test with both Cox regression and Kaplan–Meier survival analysis showed that ADAMTS6 expression profile correlated with the GC patients’ clinical outcome. Patients with a high expression of ADAMTS6 were associated with poor overall survival (OS). Comprehensive survival analysis of the ADAMTS genes suggests that ADAMTS6 might be an independent predictive factor for the OS in patients with GC. Besides, GSEA demonstrated that ADAMTS6 might be involved in multiple biological processes and pathways, such as the vascular endothelial growth factor A (VEGFA), kirsten rat sarcoma viral oncogene (KRAS), tumor protein P53, c-Jun N-terminal kinase (JNK), cadherin (CDH1) or tumor necrosis factor (TNF) pathways.Conclusions: In summary, our study demonstrated that ADAMTS6 gene could be used as a potential molecular marker for GC prognosis.