Identification of a Transcriptomic Prognostic Signature by Machine Learning Using a Combination of Small Cohorts of Prostate Cancer

Determining which treatment to provide to men with prostate cancer (PCa) is a major challenge for clinicians. Currently, the clinical risk-stratification for PCa is based on clinico-pathological variables such as Gleason grade, stage and prostate specific antigen (PSA) levels. But transcriptomic data have the potential to enable the development of more precise approaches to predict evolution of the disease. However, high quality RNA sequencing (RNA-seq) datasets along with clinical data with long follow-up allowing discovery of biochemical recurrence (BCR) biomarkers are small and rare. In this study, we propose a machine learning approach that is robust to batch effect and enables the discovery of highly predictive signatures despite using small datasets. Gene expression data were extracted from three RNA-Seq datasets cumulating a total of 171 PCa patients. Data were re-analyzed using a unique pipeline to ensure uniformity. Using a machine learning approach, a total of 14 classifiers were tested with various parameters to identify the best model and gene signature to predict BCR. Using a random forest model, we have identified a signature composed of only three genes (JUN, HES4, PPDPF) predicting BCR with better accuracy [74.2%, balanced error rate (BER) = 27%] than the clinico-pathological variables (69.2%, BER = 32%) currently in use to predict PCa evolution. This score is in the range of the studies that predicted BCR in single-cohort with a higher number of patients. We showed that it is possible to merge and analyze different small and heterogeneous datasets altogether to obtain a better signature than if they were analyzed individually, thus reducing the need for very large cohorts. This study demonstrates the feasibility to regroup different small datasets in one larger to identify a predictive genomic signature that would benefit PCa patients.