Fig. 1

Expression of nAChRs and classification based on the prognosis in the smoking population in the HNSCC cohort. A Expression profile of nAChRs; blue and red dots represent normal adjacent and tumor tissues, respectively. *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001. B Protein–protein interaction network for nAChRs; circles represent nAChRs; the thickness of the line represents the strength of the experimental evidence while the size of the circle represents the degree value. C Significantly enriched signaling pathways based on nAChR expression. D Univariate Cox regression analysis for nAChRs; blue and red dots represent protective and risk factors, respectively. E LASSO coefficient profiles; nAChRs with non-zero coefficients corresponding to the same log lambda value were selected for the construction of the model, red curve represents CHRNA5, blue curve represents CHRNA9, green curve represents CHRNB4, and black curve represents CHRNA2. (F) LASSO deviance profiles; the log lambda value corresponds to the minimum cross-validation error point