Clinicopathological characteristics and prognostic significance of HDAC11 protein expression in non-small cell lung cancer: a retrospective study

Background: Although the prognosis of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) can be assessed based on pathological type, disease stage and inflammatory indicators, the prognostic scoring model of NSCLC still needs to improve. HDAC11 is associated with poor prognosis of partial tumors, but its prognostic relationship with NSCLC is poorly understood. In this study, the role of HDAC11 in NSCLC was studied to evaluate relationship with disease prognosis and potential therapeutic target. Methods: The clinicopathological and paracancerous tissues of patients with NSCLC primarily diagnosed in Tangdu Hospital from 2009 to 2013 were collected. Follow-up of patients were made every three months and the last follow-up period was December 2018. The expression of HDAC11 was assessed by immunohistochemistry (IHC). Then, weighted gene co-expression network analysis (WGCNA) was used to analyze the relationship between HDAC11 expression and the prognosis of lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD) patients. Gene Ontology (GO) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathway enrichment analysis. Kaplan-Meier plotter database was used to verify the connection between hub genes and tumor stage and prognosis. We accessed the relationship between HDAC11 expression and clinicopathological features, and impact on the prognosis. Results: The study assessed 326 patients with NSCLC. Compared with adjacent tissues, HDAC11 expression was upregulated (HR =1.503, 95% CI: 1.172 to 1.927, P=0.001). Kaplan-Meier survival analyses showed that HDAC11 expression was closely related to OS of NSCLC patients (P=0.0011). Univariate and multivariate analyses showed that the independent risk factors of OS were clinical stage, HDAC11 expression, and HDAC11 differentiation (all P <= 0.001). HDAC11 was significantly associated with prognosis in LUAD. A total of 1,174 differential genes and WGCNA were obtained to construct a co-expression network in LUAD. The GO and KEGG pathway enrichment analyses showed the relevance with staphylococcus aureus infection, NOD-like receptor signaling pathway, and others. The results of LUAD survival analysis showed that HDAC11-related genes NKX2-5 and FABP7 were significantly associated with LUAD prognosis. Conclusions: The high expression of HDAC11 is related to the poor prognosis of LUAD, and it is expected to become a therapeutic target and prognostic evaluation therapy for LUAD in the future. However, the relevant results need to be further studied and verified.