FTO mRNA expression in the lower quartile is associated with bad prognosis in clear cell renal cell carcinoma based on TCGA data mining.

Fat mass and obesity associated (FTO) is a protein-coding gene, also known as the obesity gene. It has been reported previously to be associated with a variety of malignant cancers, such as breast, thyroid and acute myeloid leukemia. The aim of the present study was to investigate the FTO mRNA expression in human clear cell renal cell carcinoma and its clinical value. FTO mRNA expression and its prognostic value were investigated by bioinformatic analysis of the data from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA, https://cancergenome.nih.gov/). The Kaplan-Meier analysis showed that FTO mRNA expression in the lower quartile is significantly associated with poor survival in clear cell renal cell carcinoma patients (P < 0.0001). This study indicated that higher FTO mRNA expression may have a protective role and it may be a vital molecular marker in the prognosis of clear cell renal cell carcinoma patients.