Predictive and clinicopathological importance of HMGB2 in various carcinomas: a meta and bioinformatic approach.

BACKGROUND

High mobility group box 2 (HMGB2), one of the HMGB domain proteins, may play a significant role in cancer development and progression. Recent scientific investigations have hinted at the potential clinical relevance of HMGB2, particularly in cancer patients where its expression levels have been observed to be elevated. However, the precise impact of HMGB2 on the prognosis of tumors remains an area of ongoing research. To the best of our understanding, our study represents a meta-analysis that elucidates a connection between HMGB2 expression and the clinical outcomes of diverse cancer types.

METHOD

We executed a thorough and systematic search of literature across PubMed, Web of Science, Embase, CNKI, and Wanfang databases. Following this, we conducted a quantitative meta-analysis using statistical tools such as StataMP16 and RevMan5.3. The primary focus of our analysis was to assess the relationship between HMGB2 expression levels and overall survival (OS), disease-free survival (DFS), as well as various clinicopathological characteristics of cancer patients by calculating the hazard ratio (HR). Additionally, we validated our findings by examining HMGB2 expression patterns across different cancer types using the Gene Expression Profiling Interactive Analysis (GEPIA) online platform.

RESULT

Our meta-analysis incorporated data from 17 studies, encompassing a total of 2555 cancer patients. The results revealed a statistically significant association between high HMGB2 expression and shorter OS (HR, 1.40 ;95% CI: 1.10-1.70; P < 0.001), especially in digestive cancer ( HR, 2.09 (95% CI: 1.54-2.63; I = 0.0%,P = 0.424). Furthermore, GEPIA analysis demonstrated a consistent upregulation of HMGB2 in most cancer types, with a downregulation between HMGB2 and LAML.

CONCLUSION

Our findings underscore a detrimental correlation between the upregulation of HMGB2 and the prognosis of various cancers. This discovery could pave the way for the development of innovative prognostic biomarkers and therapeutic targets that specifically target HMGB2, offering new avenues for the management and treatment of cancer patients.