Previously defined 53 immune gene panel predicts melanoma survival using The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA)

Methods TCGA dataset for melanoma (n=407) was screened to determine two extreme groups of patients – alive at least 4 years (n=67) and dead within 2 years from diagnosis (n=59). Genome wide differential expression analysis was performed between the two groups to study our prognostic signature. We used gene set enrichment analysis (GSEA) to evaluate the activation status of the 53 gene panel as well as multiple immune lineage specific gene sets[2]. We used PAM clustering algorithm to define two groups based on the expression data of the 53 genes and performed survival analysis on the unsupervised patient clusters.