Non-coding RNA-mediated High Expression of As a Prognostic Biomarker Associated with Paclitaxel Resistance and Immunosuppressive Microenvironment in Head and Neck Cancer

Chemoresistance is the leading cause of poor prognosis in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSC); however, promising biomarkers to identify patients for stratified chemotherapy are lacking. Sideroflexin 3 () is an important mitochondrial serine transporter during one-carbon metabolism, which is involved in the proliferation of cancer cells. However, the specific role of in HNSC remains unknown. In this study, we performed expression and survival analysis for in pan-cancer using data from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and Genotype-Tissue Expression (GTEx) and found that served as a potential oncogene in HNSC. Notably, expression was found to be positively associated with enriched tumor-infiltrating macrophages, other immune suppressive cells, and immune checkpoint expression and resistance to paclitaxel. Gene, clinical, and immune variables included in the univariate and multivariate analyses showed that expression was an independent risk factor. Moreover, the /hsa-miR-29c-3p/ axis was identified as the most likely upstream non-coding RNA-related pathway of in HNSC using bioinformatic analysis, expression analysis, correlation analysis, and survival analysis. Taken together, our findings demonstrated that a non-coding RNA-mediated high expression of is a prognostic biomarker and is associated with the immunosuppressive microenvironment in HNSC.