Identification of novel biomarkers for lung squamous cell carcinoma

Lung squamous cell carcinoma (LUSC) is the second most common subtype of lung cancer, accounting for a majority of lung cancer-related deaths. Detection or diagnosis of cancer at an early stage is an unmet clinical need that is being actively explored. In this study, we aimed to identify potential biomarkers for LUSC, by screening expression status of all human genes against LUSC patient samples available with The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA). This led to the identification of several genes that are upregulated in LUSC. Further analysis revealed that many of these genes also show higher expression at the protein level not only in lung cancer but also in other cancers. Additionally, some of these genes show stage-dependent higher expression and are associated with statistically significant poor survival of LUSC patients. As per our results, more than 60 genes are overexpressed in LUSC at the level of mRNA and some at the protein level. Thus, we identified genes such as MCC1, MRPL47, CRYGS, HSP40, DNAJC19, GMPS and PARL as novel potential biomarkers for LUSC in this study. We believe that these genes hold great potential as LUSC biomarkers for early detection as the data are derived from patient samples.