scholarly journals Pan-Cancer Analyses Reveal Oncogenic and Immunological Role of Dickkopf-1 (DKK1)

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shuang Gao ◽  
Ye Jin ◽  
Hongmei Zhang

WNT signaling pathway inhibitor Dickkopf-1 (DKK1) is related to cancer progression; however, its diagnostic and prognostic potential have not been investigated in a pan-cancer perspective. In this study, multiple bioinformatic analyses were conducted to evaluate therapeutic value of DKK1 in human cancers. The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and the Genotype-Tissue Expression (GTEx) project served as data resources. The Wilcoxon rank test was performed to evaluate the expression difference of DKK1 between cancer tissues and normal tissues. A Kaplan-Meier curve and Cox regression were used for prognosis evaluation. Single-sample gene set enrichment analysis (ssGSEA) was used to evaluate the association of DKK1 expression with the immune cell infiltration. The potential function of DKK1 was explored by STRING and clusterProfiler. We found that the expression level of DKK1 is significantly different in different cancer types. Importantly, we demonstrated that DKK1 is an independent risk factor in ESCA, LUAD, MESO, and STAD. Further analysis revealed that DKK1 had a large effect on the immune cell infiltration and markers of certain immune cells, such as Th1 and Th2 cells. PPI network analysis and further pathway enrichment analysis indicated that DKK1 was mainly involved in the WNT signaling pathway. Our findings suggested that DKK1 might serve as a marker of prognosis for certain cancers by affecting the WNT signaling pathway and tumor immune microenvironment.

2022 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kaidi Zhao ◽  
Yuexiong Yi ◽  
Zhou Ma ◽  
Wei Zhang

Background: Inhibin A (INHBA), a member of the TGF-β superfamily, has been shown to be differentially expressed in various cancer types and is associated with prognosis. However, its role in cervical cancer remains unclear.Methods: We aimed to demonstrate the relationship between INHBA expression and pan-cancer using The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database. Next, we validated INHBA expression in cervical cancer using the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) database, including GSE7803, GSE63514, and GSE9750 datasets. Enrichment analysis of INHBA was performed using the R package “clusterProfiler.” We analyzed the association between immune infiltration level and INHBA expression in cervical cancer using the single-sample gene set enrichment analysis (ssGSEA) method by the R package GSVA. We explored the association between INHBA expression and prognosis using the R package “survival”.Results: Pan-cancer data analysis showed that INHBA expression was elevated in 19 tumor types, including cervical cancer. We further confirmed that INHBA expression was higher in cervical cancer samples from GEO database and cervical cancer cell lines than in normal cervical cells. Survival prognosis analysis indicated that higher INHBA expression was significantly associated with reduced Overall Survival (p = 0.001), disease Specific Survival (p = 0.006), and Progression Free Interval (p = 0.001) in cervical cancer and poorer prognosis in other tumors. GSEA and infiltration analysis showed that INHBA expression was significantly associated with tumor progression and some types of immune infiltrating cells.Conclusion:INHBA was highly expressed in cervical cancer and was significantly associated with poor prognosis. Meanwhile, it was correlated with immune cell infiltration and could be used as a promising prognostic target for cervical cancer.


2021 ◽  
Vol 15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dezhi Shan ◽  
Xing Guo ◽  
Guozheng Yang ◽  
Zheng He ◽  
Rongrong Zhao ◽  
...  

Intracranial aneurysms (IAs) may cause lethal subarachnoid hemorrhage upon rupture, but the molecular mechanisms are poorly understood. The aims of this study were to analyze the transcriptional profiles to explore the functions and regulatory networks of differentially expressed genes (DEGs) in IA rupture by bioinformatics methods and to identify the underlying mechanisms. In this study, 1,471 DEGs were obtained, of which 619 were upregulated and 852 were downregulated. Gene enrichment analysis showed that the DEGs were mainly enriched in the inflammatory response, immune response, neutrophil chemotaxis, and macrophage differentiation. Related pathways include the regulation of actin cytoskeleton, leukocyte transendothelial migration, nuclear factor κB signaling pathway, Toll-like receptor signaling pathway, tumor necrosis factor signaling pathway, and chemokine signaling pathway. The enrichment analysis of 20 hub genes, subnetworks, and significant enrichment modules of weighted gene coexpression network analysis showed that the inflammatory response and immune response had a causal relationship with the rupture of unruptured IAs (UIAs). Next, the CIBERSORT method was used to analyze immune cell infiltration into ruptured IAs (RIAs) and UIAs. Macrophage infiltration into RIAs increased significantly compared with that into UIAs. The result of principal component analysis revealed that there was a difference between RIAs and UIAs in immune cell infiltration. A 4-gene immune-related risk model for IA rupture (IRMIR), containing CXCR4, CXCL3, CX3CL1, and CXCL16, was established using the glmnet package in R software. The receiver operating characteristic value revealed that the model represented an excellent clinical situation for potential application. Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay was performed and showed that the concentrations of CXCR4 and CXCL3 in serum from RIA patients were significantly higher than those in serum from UIA patients. Finally, a competing endogenous RNA network was constructed to provide a potential explanation for the mechanism of immune cell infiltration into IAs. Our findings highlighted the importance of immune cell infiltration into RIAs, providing a direction for further research.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiaofen Pan ◽  
Xingkui Tang ◽  
Minling Liu ◽  
Xijun Luo ◽  
Mengyuan Zhu ◽  
...  

Abstract BackgroundTumor microenvironment consists of tumor cells, immune cells and other matric components. Tumor infiltration immune cells are associated with prognosis. But all the current prognosis evaluation system dose not take tumor immune cells other matrix component into consideration. In the current study, we aimed to construct a prognosis predictive model based on tumor microenvironment.MethodCIBERSORT and ESTIMATE algorithms were used to reveal the immune cell infiltration landscape of colon cancer. Patients were classified into three clusters by ConsensusClusterPlus algorithm. Immune cell infiltration (ICI) scores of each patient were determine by principal-component analysis. Patients were divided to high and low ICI score groups. Survival, gene expression and somatic mutation of the two groups were compared.ResultsPatients with no lymph node invasion, no metastasis, T1-2 disease and stage I-II had higher ICI scores. Calcium signaling pathway, leukocyte transendothelial migration pathway, MAPK signaling pathway, TGF β pathway, and WNT signaling pathway were enriched in high ICI score group. Immune-checkpoint genes and immune-activity associated genes were significantly decreased in high ICI score. Patients in high ICI score group had better survival than low ICI score group. Prognostic value of ICI score was independent of TMB.ConclusionICI score might serve as an independent prognostic biomarker in colon cancer.


2022 ◽  
Vol 2022 ◽  
pp. 1-14
Author(s):  
Yuanyuan Feng ◽  
Xinfang Tang ◽  
Changcheng Li ◽  
Ying Su ◽  
Xiaoyu Wang ◽  
...  

Objective. ARID1A has been discovered as a potential cancer biomarker. But its role in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is subject to considerable dispute. Methods. The relationship between ARID1A and clinical factors was investigated. Clinicopathological variables related to overall survival in HCC subjects were identified using Cox and Kaplan–Meier studies. The connection between immune infiltrating cells and ARID1A expression was investigated using the tumor Genome Atlas (TCGA) dataset for gene set enrichment analysis (GSEA). Finally, a cell experiment was used to confirm it. Results. The gender and cancer topography (T) categorization of HCC were linked to increased ARID1A expression. Participants with advanced levels of ARID1A expression had a worse prognosis than someone with lower levels. ARID1A was shown to be a risk indicator of overall survival on its own. ARID1A expression is inversely proportional to immune cell infiltration. In vitro, decreasing ARID1A expression substantially slowed the cell cycle and decreased HCC cell proliferation, migration, and invasion. Conclusion. The expression of ARID1A could be used to predict the outcome of HCC. It is closely related to tumor immune cell infiltration.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xingkui Tang ◽  
Minling Liu ◽  
Xijun Luo ◽  
Mengyuan Zhu ◽  
Shan Huang ◽  
...  

The current study aimed to construct a prognostic predictive model based on tumor microenvironment. CIBERSORT and ESTIMATE algorithms were used to reveal the immune cell infiltration (ICI) landscape of colon cancer. Patients were classified into three clusters by ConsensusClusterPlus algorithm. ICI scores of each patient were determined by principal component analysis. Patients were divided into high and low ICI score groups. Survival, gene expression, and somatic mutation of the two groups were compared. We found that patients with no lymph node invasion, no metastasis, T1–2 disease, and stage I–II had higher ICI scores. Calcium signaling pathway, leukocyte transendothelial migration pathway, MAPK signaling pathway, TGF β pathway, and Wnt signaling pathway were enriched in the high ICI score group. Immune-checkpoint and immune-activity associated genes were decreased in high ICI score patients. Patients in the high ICI score group had better survival. Prognostic value of ICI score was independent of tumor mutational burden (TMB). The ICI score model constructed in the current study may serve as an independent prognostic biomarker in colon cancer.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yimin Pan ◽  
Kai Xiao ◽  
Yue Li ◽  
Yuzhe Li ◽  
Qing Liu

Glioblastoma (GBM) is a group of intracranial neoplasms with intra-tumoral heterogeneity. RNA N6-methyladenosine (m6A) methylation modification reportedly plays roles in immune response. The relationship between the m6A modification pattern and immune cell infiltration in GBM remains unknown. Utilizing expression data of GBM patients, we thoroughly explored the potential m6A modification pattern and m6A-related signatures based on 21 regulators. Thereafter, the m6A methylation modification-based prognostic assessment pipeline (MPAP) was constructed to quantitatively assess GBM patients’ clinical prognosis combining the Robustness and LASSO regression. Single-sample gene-set enrichment analysis (ssGSEA) was used to estimate the specific immune cell infiltration level. We identified two diverse clusters with diverse m6A modification characteristics. Based on differentially expressed genes (DEGs) within two clusters, m6A-related signatures were identified to establish the MPAP, which can be used to quantitatively forecast the prognosis of GBM patients. In addition, the relationship between 21 m6A regulators and specific immune cell infiltration was demonstrated in our study and the m6A regulator ELAVL1 was determined to play an important role in the anticancer response to PD-L1 therapy. Our findings indicated the relationship between m6A methylation modification patterns and tumor microenvironment immune cell infiltration, through which we could comprehensively understand resistance to multiple therapies in GBM, as well as accomplish precise risk stratification according to m6A-related signatures.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiaoxi Shi ◽  
Yuanlin Liu ◽  
Shuai Cheng ◽  
Haidi Hu ◽  
Jian Zhang ◽  
...  

BackgroundCancer stem cells (CSCs) have been proven to influence drug resistance, recurrence, and metastasis in tumors. Our study aimed to identify stemness-related prognostic biomarkers for new therapeutic strategies in adrenocortical carcinoma.MethodsRNA-seq data and clinical characteristics were downloaded from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA). The stemness indexes, mDNAsi and mRNAsi, were calculated to classify all samples into low-score and high-score groups. Two algorithms, based on the R language, ESTIMATE and single-sample Gene Set Enrichment Analysis (ssGSEA) were used to assess the immune cell infiltration states of adrenocortical carcinoma patients. Weighted Gene Co-expression Network Analysis (WGCNA) was used to find genes that were related to the stemness of cancer. By bioinformatics methods, the correlations between biomarkers capable of predicting immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) responses and stemness of cancer were explored.ResultsHigh-mRNAsi predicted shorter overall survival (OS) and a higher metastatic trend in adrenocortical carcinoma (ACC) patients. Compared with the low-mRNAsi group, the high-mRNAsi group had a lower ImmuneScore and StromalScroe. Twenty-two stemness-related prognostic genes were obtained by WGCNA, which focused on the function of the cell cycle and cell mitosis. Immune cell infiltration, especially CD8+T cell, increased in the low-mRNAsi group compared with the high-mRNAsi group. Lower expression of PD-L1, CTLA-4, and TIGHT was evaluated in the high-mRNAsi group.ConclusionsACC patients with high-mRNAsi have poor prognosis and less immune cell infiltration. Combined with the finding of lower expression of CTLA-4, TIGHT, and PD-L1 in the high-mRNAsi group, we came to the conclusion that stemness index is a potential biomarker to predict the effectiveness of ICIs.


2021 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Siqing Sun ◽  
Yutao Wang ◽  
Jianfeng Wang ◽  
Jianbin Bi

Abstract Background The Wnt signaling pathway is core to the growth of bladder tumors. Epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT) is significant for bladder tumor metastasis. Nevertheless, the relationship between the Wnt signaling pathway, outcomes of bladder cancer (BLCA), and the specific mechanisms driving immune infiltration have not been studied. Methods We obtained Wnt pathway-related gene mRNA and clinicopathological data from the Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA). We obtained 34 genes that were greatly correlated with outcome using univariate Cox regression analysis and conducted a completely randomized data t-test to perform clinical staging. According to the single-sample gene set enrichment analysis (ssGSEA), the weighted correlation network analysis (WGCNA) was applied to identify relevant biological functions. Various subtypes were identified using consensus cluster analysis. Univariate Cox regression and least absolute shrinkage sum selection operator–Cox regression algorithm analysis were conducted on TCGA and Gene Expression Omnibus data to identify risk characteristics. The Kaplan–Meier method and receiver running feature curves were adopted to calculate overall survival. Single-sample gene set enrichment analysis (ssGSEA) was adopted for the assessment of the degree of immune infiltration. Then, we demonstrated the relationship between PPP2CB and EMT function in two cell lines. Results Thirty-four Wnt signaling pathway-related genes were risk factors for BLCA outcome, and their expression levels differed by clinical stage. The co-expression of WGCNA showed the relationship between the Wnt signaling pathway and biological functions and was closely associated with EMT. We divided BLCA patients into two subtypes using consensus clustering. Survival curves and clinical analysis showed that the Wnt pathway enriched group had worse outcomes. The Wnt signature showed the significance of the outcome for MAPK10, PPP2CB, and RAC3. Based on these genes, the degree of immune infiltration was evaluated. Cell function experiments suggested that PPP2CB drives the proliferation and migration of BLCA cells. Conclusion We found that Wnt signaling pathway-related genes can be used as prognostic risk factors for BLCA, and the Wnt signaling pathway is a cancer-promoting signaling pathway associated with EMT. We identified three critical genes: MAPK10, RAC3, and PPP2CB. The genes in these three Wnt signaling pathways are associated with tumor cell EMT and immune cell infiltration. The most important finding was that these three genes were independent prognostic factors for BLCA.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ying Luo ◽  
Ying Zhang ◽  
Shuang-yi Yin ◽  
Yue Luo ◽  
Xiao-jie Ding ◽  
...  

Abstract Background: Taodan granules (TDGs), traditional Chinese herbals, are effective in treating psoriasis. However, mechanisms of TDGs remain indistinct. The current study aims to indicate the molecular mechanisms of TDGs in treating psoriasis.Methods: Primarily, transcriptional profiling was applied to identify differentially expression genes (DEGs). The following was that we used Gene Set Enrichment Analysis (GSEA) and Ingenuity Pathway Analysis (IPA) analysis for functional enrichment analysis. Eventually, RT-PCR was performed to validation. Results: The results revealed that TDGs could regulated the Wnt signaling pathway to ameliorate skin lesions of imiquimod (IMQ)-induced psoriatic mouse models. IPA core network associated with Wnt signaling pathways in TDGs for psoriasis was established. Thereinto zeste homolog (EZH) 2, CTNNB1, TP63, and WD repeat domain (WDR) 5 could be considered as upstream genes in the Wnt signaling pathway.Conclusions: The Wnt signaling pathway with these above upstream genes might be potential therapeutic targets of TDGs for psoriasis.


Author(s):  
Qi Zhao ◽  
Junfeng Liu

Objective: Prolyl 4-hydroxylase, alpha polypeptide I (P4HA1), a key enzyme in collagen synthesis, comprises two identical alpha subunits and two beta subunits. However, the immunomodulatory role of P4HA1 in tumor immune microenvironment (TIME) remains unclear. This study aimed to evaluate the prognostic value of P4HA1 in pan-cancer and explore the relationship between P4HA1 expression and TIME.Methods: P4HA1 expression, clinical features, mutations, DNA methylation, copy number alteration, and prognostic value in pan-cancer were investigated using the Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and Genotype-Tissue Expression data. Pathway enrichment analysis of P4HA1 was performed using R package “clusterProfiler.” The correlation between immune cell infiltration level and P4HA1 expression was analyzed using three sources of immune cell infiltration data, including ImmuCellAI database, TIMER2 database, and a published work.Results: P4HA1 was substantially overexpressed in most cancer types. P4HA1 overexpression was associated with poor survival in patients. Additionally, we discovered that P4HA1 expression was positively associated with infiltration levels of immunosuppressive cells, such as tumor-associated macrophages, cancer-associated fibroblasts, nTregs, and iTregs, and negatively correlated with CD8+ T and NK cells in pan-cancer.Conclusions: Our results highlighted that P4HA1 might serve as a potential prognostic biomarker in pan-cancer. P4HA1 overexpression is indicative of an immunosuppressive microenvironment. P4HA1 may be a potential target of immunotherapy.


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