Advanced Glycation End Products' Receptor DNA Methylation Associated with Immune Infiltration and Prognosis of Lung Adenocarcinoma and Lung Squamous Cell Carcinoma.

BACKGROUND

Advanced glycation end products' receptor (AGER) is a multiligand receptor that interacts with a wide range of ligands. Previous studies have shown that abnormal AGER expression is closely related to immune infiltration and tumorigenesis. However, the AGER DNA methylation relationship between prognosis and infiltrating immune cells in LUAD and LUSC is still unclear.

METHODS

AGER expression in pan-cancer was obtained by using the UALCAN databases. Kaplan-Meier plotter showed the correlation of mRNA expression levels and clinicopathological parameters. The protein expression levels for AGER were derived from Human Protein Atlas Database Analysis. The copy number, somatic mutation, and DNA methylation of AGER were presented with UCSC Xena database. TIMER platform and TISIDB website were used to show the correlation between expression and tumor immune cell infiltration level.

RESULTS

The expression level of was significantly reduced in lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD) and lung squamous cell carcinoma (LUSC). Low expression of was significantly correlated with histology, stage, lymph node metastasis, and tumor protein 53 (TP53) mutation and could be used as a potential indicator of poor prognosis of LUAD and LUSC. Moreover, expression was positively correlated with the infiltrating immune cells. Further analysis showed that copy number variation (CNV), mutation, and DNA methylation were involved in AGER downregulation. In addition, we also found that hypermethylated AGER was significantly correlated with tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes.

CONCLUSION

AGER may be a candidate for the prognostic biomarker of LUAD and LUSC related to tumor immune microenvironment.