Biomarker discovery for practice of precision medicine in hypopharyngeal cancer a theranostic study on response prediction of the key therapeutic agents

(2022) 22:779 Kawata‑Shimamura et al BMC Cancer https://doi.org/10.1186/s12885-022-09853-1 Open Access RESEARCH Biomarker discovery for practice of precision medicine in hypopharyngeal cancer: a theranostic study on response prediction of the key therapeutic agents Yumiko Kawata‑Shimamura1,2,3†, Hidetaka Eguchi2,4†, Reika Kawabata‑Iwakawa5†, Mitsuhiko Nakahira1, Yasushi Okazaki2,4, Tetsuya Yoda3,6, Reidar Grénman7, Masashi Sugasawa1 and Masahiko Nishiyama2,8,9*  Abstract  Background:  Hypopharyngeal cancer is a relatively rare malignancy with poor prognosis Current chemotherapeutic algorithm is still far from personalized medicine, and the identification of the truly active therapeutic biomarkers and/ or targets is eagerly awaited Methods:  Venturing to focus on the conventional key chemotherapeutic drugs, we identified the most correlative genes (and/or proteins) with cellular sensitivity to docetaxel (TXT), cisplatin (CDDP) and 5-fluorouracil (5-FU) in the expression levels, through steps approach: genome-wide screening, confirmation study on the quantified expres‑ sion levels, and knock-down and transfection analyses of the candidates The probable action pathways of selected genes were examined by Ingenuity Pathway Analysis using a large-scale database, The Cancer Genome Atlas Results:  The first genome-wide screening study derived 16 highly correlative genes with cellular drug sensitivity in 15 cell lines (|R| > 0.8, P  0.5, P  0.80, P  0.50 (P