Identification of homer protein homolog 3 as a prognostic marker of colon adenocarcinoma.

BACKGROUND

Homer protein homolog 3 (), a factor implicated in both physiological and pathological processes, has been studied extensively to determine the relationship between its expression level and the prognosis of various malignancies. However, the significance and clinicopathological role of in colorectal adenocarcinoma remain unclear.

METHODS

In this study, bioinformatics techniques were used to find the correlation between high expression levels and clinicopathological features of colorectal adenocarcinoma (COAD) patients.

RESULTS

Cellular experiments confirmed the differential expression of in tumor cells compared to normal cells. overexpression was significantly associated with COAD staging and carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) levels. Patients with high expression levels have a poor prognosis. expression levels can be distinguished more accurately between tumor and non-tumor tissues (AUC = 0.634). The gene variation rate in COAD tissue was 0.7 %. Moreover, 16 of the 22 DNA methylation sites in were associated with COAD prognosis. Our findings confirmed that was positively correlated with immune cell infiltration and immune checkpoints (PD-1, CTLA-4, LMTK3, and LAG3) in COAD, Specifically, we will clearly state that while there is statistical significance, the actual strength of the correlations is weak. During KEGG enrichment analysis, was enriched along with DLG4 and SHANK1 in glutamatergic synapses. Additionally, upstream microRNAs that could bind to were predicted. These findings suggest that might be involved in COAD development and immune regulation.

CONCLUSIONS

acts as a potential biomarker that can facilitate innovative developments in the diagnosis and prognostic assessment of COAD.