Six-Gene Immune Signature for Head and Neck Cancer Prognosis

A six-gene prognostic signature (PYGL, SFRP1, FGD3, OLR1, DUSP9, MASP1) stratifies head and neck squamous cell carcinoma patients into high- and low-risk groups. Pian Li developed this model by integrating transcriptomic and clinical data from TCGA and GEO cohorts. The dataset was last updated in April 2026.

Use Cases

• Predict patient risk stratification and survival using the six-gene signature (PYGL, SFRP1, FGD3, OLR1, DUSP9, MASP1).
• Analyze associations between the gene signature risk score and tumor mutation burden (TMB) or immune infiltration levels.
• Investigate links between the signature and patient response to immune checkpoint blockade therapy.
• Validate the prognostic model's performance across independent validation cohorts (TCGA and GEO).

Strengths

• Model validated across four independent patient cohorts (TCGA and GEO).
• Signature links to concrete biological pathways (MYC/E2F targets, EMT, interferon response).
• Functional validation of a key gene (PYGL) via siRNA knockdown in cell lines.

Limitations

• Dataset is very small (10.1 KB), indicating limited raw data, likely containing only model results or summary statistics.
• Specific sample size (row count) and individual patient-level data columns are not provided.
• Clinical utility requires further prospective validation in real-world settings.

Provenance

Source

Integrated data from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO).

Collection Method

Transcriptomic and clinical data integration, followed by Cox and LASSO regression analysis.

Freshness

Last updated in April 2026.