An Integrative Pan-Cancer Analysis Revealing LCN2 as an Oncogenic Immune Protein in Tumor Microenvironment

Copyright © 2020 Xu, Zhang, Hua, Yang, Wang and Tang..

BACKGROUND: Lipocalin 2 (LCN2), an innate immune protein, plays a pivotal role in promoting sterile inflammation by regulating immune responses. However, the role of LCN2 in diverse cancers remains poorly defined. This research aimed to investigate the correlation between LCN2 expression and immunity and visualize its prognostic landscape in pan-cancer.

METHODS: Raw data in regard to LCN2 expression in cancer patients were acquired from TCGA and GTEx databases. Besides, we investigated the genomic alterations, expression pattern, and survival analysis of LCN2 in pan-cancer across numerous databases, including cBioPortal and GEPIA database. The correlation between LCN2 expression and tumor immune infiltration was explored via TIMER, and we utilized CIBERSORT and ESTIMATE computational methods to assess the proportion of tumor-infiltrating immune cells (TIICs) and the amount of stromal and immune components from TCGA database. Protein-Protein Interaction analysis was performed in GeneMANIA database, and gene functional enrichment was performed by Gene Set Enrichment Analysis (GSEA).

RESULTS: On balance, tumor tissue had a higher LCN2 expression level compared with that in normal tissue. Elevated expression of LCN2 was related to poor clinical regimen with OS and RFS. There were significant positive correlations between LCN2 expression and TIICs, including CD8+ T cells, CD4+ T cells, B cells, neutrophils, macrophages, and dendritic cells. Moreover, markers of TIICs exhibited different LCN2-related immune infiltration patterns. GSEA analysis showed that the expression of LCN2 was related to retinol metabolism, drug metabolism cytochrome P450 and metabolism of xenobiotics by cytochrome P450.

CONCLUSIONS: These findings suggested that LCN2 might serve as a biomarker for immune infiltration and poor prognosis in cancers, shedding new light on therapeutics of cancers.

Medienart:

E-Artikel

Erscheinungsjahr:

2020

Erschienen:

2020

Enthalten in:

Zur Gesamtaufnahme - volume:10

Enthalten in:

Frontiers in oncology - 10(2020) vom: 08., Seite 605097

Sprache:

Englisch

Beteiligte Personen:

Xu, Wen-Xiu [VerfasserIn]
Zhang, Jian [VerfasserIn]
Hua, Yu-Ting [VerfasserIn]
Yang, Su-Jin [VerfasserIn]
Wang, Dan-Dan [VerfasserIn]
Tang, Jin-Hai [VerfasserIn]

Links:

Volltext

Themen:

Database
Immune infiltration
Journal Article
Lipocalin 2
Pan-cancer
Tumor microenvironment

Anmerkungen:

Date Revised 19.04.2022

published: Electronic-eCollection

Citation Status PubMed-not-MEDLINE

doi:

10.3389/fonc.2020.605097

funding:

Förderinstitution / Projekttitel:

PPN (Katalog-ID):

NLM319892727