High expression of LUM independently predicts poor prognosis in gastric cancer: a bioinformatics study combining TCGA and GEO datasets

Molecular Analysis of Prognosis and Immune Infiltration of Ovarian Cancer Based on Homeobox D Genes

Background

Homeobox D (HOXD) genes were associated with cancer pathogenesis. However, the role of HOXD genes in ovarian cancer (OC) and the possible mechanisms involved are unclear. In this study, we analyzed the function and regulatory mechanisms and functions of HOXD genes in OC based on comprehensive bioinformatics analysis.

Methods

Expression of HOXD1/3/4/8/9/10/11/12/13 mRNA was analyzed between OC tissue and normal tissue using ONCOMINE, GEO, and TCGA databases. The relationship between HOXD expression and clinical stage was studied by GEPIA. The Kaplan-Meier plotter was used to analyze prognosis. cBioPortal was used to analyze the mutation and coexpression of HOXDs. GO and KEGG analyses were performed by the DAVID software to predict the function of HOXD coexpression genes. Immune infiltration analysis was used to evaluate the relationship between the expression of HOXD genes and 24 immune infiltrating cells.

Results

The expression of HOXD3/4/8/9/10/11 was significantly lower in OC tissues than in normal ovarian tissues, while the expression of HOXD1/12/13 was significantly higher in OC tissues. The expression of HOXD genes was associated with FIGO stage, primary therapy outcome, tumor status, anatomic neoplasm subdivision, and age. The expression levels of HOXD1/3/4/8/9/10 correlated with tumor stage. HOXD1/8/9 could be served as ideal biomarkers to distinguish OC from normal tissue. Low HOXD9 expression was associated with shorter overall survival (OS) (HR: 0.75; 95% CI: 0.58–0.98; P = 0.034) and progression-free survival (PFS) (HR: 0.69; 95% CI: 0.54–0.87; P = 0.002). The HOXD coexpression genes were associated with pathways including cell cycle, TGF-beta signaling pathway, cellular senescence, and Hippo signaling pathway. HOXD genes were significantly associated with immune infiltration.

Conclusion

The expression of HOXD genes is associated with clinical characteristics. HOXD9 is a new biomarker of prognosis in OC, and HOXD1/4/8/9/10 may be potential therapeutic targets. The members of the HOXD genes may be the response to immunotherapy for OC.

Aberrant ARMCX1 Expression Is an Independent Predictor of Poor Prognosis in Gastric Cancer

ARMCX1 (Armadillo repeat containing X-linked 1) is identified to be the novel tumor suppressor gene related to multiple tumor types. Nonetheless, its effect on gastric cancer (GC) is still poorly understood. The present work determined ARMCX1 level within GC and the relation with clinicopathological characteristics. This work also collected relevant information in The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database for investigating associations of ARMCX1 with clinicopathologic variables and then validated in our GC cohort. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves were plotted for assessing whether ARMCX1 expression was significant in diagnosing GC. Kaplan-Meier (KM) and Cox regression analyses were conducted for assessing clinicopathological characteristics associated with overall survival (OS) of GC cases. The data from the Human Protein Atlas (HPA) and Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) databases was also analyzed for further validation, and biological processes (BPs) were identified by gene set enrichment analysis (GSEA). GC tissues showed markedly decreased ARMCX1 level relative to healthy counterparts (P < 0.001). Interestingly, ARMCX1 upregulation predicted low differentiation, poor OS, increased invasion, and late tumor stage. In addition, the area under ROC curve (AUC) and P value were 0.747 and <0.001, separately. Cases showing ARMCX1 upregulation showed significantly poor prognostic outcome compared with patients showing downregulation (P = 0.007). Furthermore, multivariate analysis showed that ARMCX1 upregulation independently predicted the risk of OS (P = 0.0017, hazard ratio, 1.089). GSEA analysis identified that several cancer-related pathways, such as focal adhesion, ECM receptor interaction, JAK/STAT, melanoma, WNT, and cancer, were enriched in GCs. We conclude that ARMCX1 serves as the possibly independent biomarker to diagnose and predict GC prognostic outcome.