[Holliday junction-recognizing protein is a potential predictive and prognostic biomarker for kidney renal clear cell carcinoma].

OBJECTIVES

To investigate the role of Holliday cross-recognition protein (HJURP) in tumorigenesis, progression, and immunotherapy responses.

METHODS

Bioinformatics approaches were used to analyze the expression level of in various cancers and its association with prognosis, clinical stage, and immune cell infiltration using TCGA, GTEx, SangerBox and TIMER 2.0 databases. LinkedOmics database was employed to investigate -related genes and their potential functions in kidney renal clear cell carcinoma (KIRC). The expression of in KIRC samples was examined with immunohistochemistry, Western blotting and qRT-PCR, and the effect of silencing on cell proliferation and migration was tested in cultured KIRC cells.

RESULTS

was highly expressed in 26 cancers with negative correlations with the patients' survival outcomes in 5 cancers including KIRC (<0.05). expression levels was strongly correlated with clinical stages and immune cell infiltration in the tumors. In KIRC, expression was significantly elevated (<0.0001) and showed a positive correlation with TNM stage (<0.05), overall stage (<0.01) and immune cell infiltration. Gene Ontology (GO) functional analysis showed that is predominantly enriched in biological processes such as biological regulation and metabolic processes. Concerning cellular components, is primarily localized to the cell membrane and nucleus. In terms of molecular functions, it is chiefly enriched in activities related to protein binding and ion binding. was highly expressed in both clinical KIRC tissues and KIRC cell lines (<0.001). In cultured KIRC cells, silencing of significantly inhibited cell proliferation and migration abilities.

CONCLUSIONS

may serves as an indicator of prognosis and immunotherapy response of KIRC, and its high expression enhances malignant behaviors of KIRC cells.