Low ASH1L Expression as Potential Diagnostic and Prognostic Biomarker for Renal Cell Carcinoma

As an important methyltransferase, ASH1L played main roles in cell differentiation, embryonic development and autoimmune response. It had been reported that its abnormal expression was closely related to the progression of some diseases. In the current study, we found that ASH1L was low expressed in renal cell carcinoma, and its low expression was positively correlated with tumor progression. Patients with low ASH1L expression had poor OS and RFS, and it had excellent clinical diagnostic value. Furthermore, lower ASH1L expression in dead than survival patients, and multivariate regression Cox analysis confirmed that low ASH1L expression was a predictor for poor prognosis of patients with renal cell carcinoma. Gene-set-enrichment-analysis showed that the DNA-repair, reactive-oxygen-species pathway and Myc-target V2 signaling were significantly enriched to the low ASH1L expression phenotype. Taking together, our findings demonstrated that the low ASH1L expression was likely to be useful as a promising prognostic indicator for renal cell carcinoma.