Evaluating as a predictive biomarker for prognosis in lung adenocarcinoma.

BACKGROUND

is a chaperone protein that plays a role in several biological processes, including inflammation and cancer. is highly expressed in lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD). However, its exact function is still unclear. This study aimed to identify as a potential biomarker for predicting prognosis in LUAD.

METHODS

We used bioinformatics methods to analyze the role of in LUAD and predict its downstream pathways. Our findings clarified the role of in cellular proliferation based on a series of experiments. Additionally, we investigated its effects on the cell cycle and apoptosis using flow cytometry.

RESULTS

We analyzed the expression levels of message RNA (mRNA) and protein in various normal human and tumor tissues using the The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA), Clinical Proteomic Tumor Analysis Consortium (CPTAC), and Human Protein Atlas (HPA) databases. Prognostic analysis of selected survival data from the TCGA database indicated that expression was associated with clinicopathological stages. The low expression group had significantly higher overall survival (OS) and disease-specific survival (DSS) rates than the high expression group. Additionally, the CancerSEA functional similarity analysis showed that was involved in several cellular functions. These included cell cycle stimulation, DNA damage response, invasion, and proliferation. Analysis of immune scores and immune cell infiltration using the ESTIMATE and TIMER databases revealed that high levels were associated with low infiltration of CD8 T cells and plasmacytoid dendritic cells (pDCs), while elevated infiltration of Th2 and T helper cells was also noted. Patients with high expression had lower scores in patient-derived xenografts, immune scores, and estimated scores. However, they exhibited notably higher T cell rejection rates. In vitro experiments further confirmed that knockdown significantly reduced the proliferation of H1299 cells.

CONCLUSIONS

These findings show that silencing expression or using inhibitors effectively improves treatment outcomes for LUAD. Targeting could be a powerful treatment strategy for LUAD.