DNA Methylation and Gene Expression with Clinical Covariates Explain Variation in Aggressiveness and Survival of Pancreatic Cancer Patients

Abstract

Pancreatic cancer (PC) is associated with a high mortality rate. We explored the interindividual variation of cancer outcomes, attributable to DNA methylation, gene expression, and clinical factors among PC patients. We aim to determine whether we could differentiate subjects with greater nodal involvement, higher cancer staging, and subsequent survival. We modeled every response variable as a function of a linear predictor involving the effects of clinical variables, methylation, and gene expression in a Bayesian framework. Our results highlight the overall importance of wide-spread alterations in methylation and gene expression patterns associated with survival, nodal metastasis, and staging.

Keywords:

• Pancreatic cancer
• DNA methylation
• gene expression
• cancer genetics
• biostatistics

Declaration of interest

The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the article.

Additional information

Funding

SYL and AIV were supported by the AACR-Incyte Corporation NextGen Grant for Transformative Cancer Research [grant number 16-20-46-LUNT]. AIV also acknowledges financial support from grants [R01GM099992 and R01GM101219].