Fig. 7

Clinical significance and biological function of the histone modification score. A Kaplan–Meier curves of relapse-free survival (left) and overall survival (middle) in the meta-GEO cohort and of overall survival (right) in the TCGA-COAD cohort according to the HM_score. B–D Forest plots of the association between the HM_score value and relapse-free survival in a multivariate Cox analysis (B); forest plots of the association between HM_score value and overall survival in subgroups stratified by adjuvant chemotherapy conduction (C); forest plots of the benefits of adjuvant chemotherapy in the low- and high-HM_score groups in the meta-GEO and TCGA-COAD cohorts (D). Unadjusted hazard ratios (boxes) and 95% confidence intervals (horizontal lines) are depicted. E and F Boxplot of HM_score values among patients with different fluorouracil responses (E) and among patients with different CMS molecular subgroups (F) in the meta-GEO and TCGA-COAD cohorts. Boxes represent 25–75% of values, lines in boxes represent median values, whiskers represent 1.5 interquartile ranges, and black dots represent outliers. G and H Heatmaps of the correlation between the HM_score value, pathway activation (G), and tumor microenvironment cell infiltration (H) in the meta-GEO (upper) and TCGA-COAD (down) cohorts. *p < 0.05 and **p < 0.01. I Boxplot of the HM_score values among patients with different fluorouracil responses (left) and among patients with different CMS molecular subgroups (right) in the SYSUCC cohort. Boxes represent 25–75% of values, lines in boxes represent median values, whiskers represent 1.5 interquartile ranges, and black dots represent outliers. J and K Heatmaps of the correlation between HM_score value, pathway activation (J), and tumor microenvironment cell infiltration (K) in the SYSUCC cohort. RFS, relapse-free survival; OS, overall survival; CI, confidence interval; CMS, consensus molecular subtypes; R, response; NR, nonresponse; and ADJC, adjuvant chemotherapy