TYK2 is a prognostic biomarker and associated with immune infiltration in the lung adenocarcinoma microenvironment

TYK2 correlates with immune infiltration: A prognostic marker for head and neck squamous cell carcinoma

Tyrosine kinase 2 (TYK2) is a member of the Janus kinase (JAK) family and is involved in immune and inflammatory signaling. TYK2 is overexpressed in several types of cancers and promotes the invasion and proliferation of cancer cells. Nevertheless, the roles of TYK2 in the prognosis and immune infiltration of head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) remain to be elucidated. In this study, the expression of TYK2 in HNSCC was evaluated based on the data retrieved from multiple databases and quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) analysis. The prognostic potential of TYK2 in patients with HNSCC was analyzed by Kaplan-Meier curves and Cox regression analysis. A TYK2-related risk assessment model was subsequently constructed by Least Absolute Shrinkage and Selection Operator (LASSO) regression analysis and stepwise multivariate Cox regression analysis. The association between the expression of TYK2 and the tumor immune microenvironment, immune checkpoints, and drug sensitivity was explored various packages in R. Cell function assays were finally used for exploring the effects of TYK2 on the growth and metastasis of HNSCC tumors. The expression of TYK2 was significantly upregulated in HNSCC and was found to be closely correlated with HPV status, gender, clinical grade, and TP53 mutation status. Survival analysis suggested that TYK2 is associated with better survival outcomes and acts as an independent prognostic indicator of HNSCC. The model constructed herein also performed well in terms of predicting patient prognosis. The expression of TYK2 was positively associated with the population of tumor-infiltrating immune cells, expression of immune checkpoint genes, and antitumor drug susceptibility. Functionally, TYK2 knockdown significantly promoted the proliferation, migration, and invasion of HNSCC cell lines in vitro. The findings demonstrated that TYK2 could serve as a suppressor of tumor growth and holds significant promise as a novel biomarker for assessing the prognosis of patients with HNSCC and aid in immunotherapy against HNSCC.

Identification of Gene-Tyrosine Kinase 2 (TYK2) in Head and Neck Squamous Cell Carcinoma Patients-An Integrated Bioinformatics Approach

Background

The human tyrosine kinase 2 (TYK2) has been found to be associated with at least 20 autoimmune diseases; however, its tumor-regulating role in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSC) has not been researched by using an integrative bioinformatics approach, yet.

Objective

To investigate the regulating mechanisms of the TYK2 gene in HNSC in terms of its expression pattern, prognostic values, involved biological functions, and implication of tumor immunity.

Methods

The TYK2 gene expression pattern and regulatory involvement in HNSC were investigated using publically accessible data from TCGA database. R software tools and public web servers were utilized to conduct statistical analysis on cancer and noncancerous samples.

Results

TYK2 was found to be significantly upregulated in HNSC samples compared with healthy control samples. The expression of TYK2 gene was shown to be associated with the prognosis of HNSC by showing its upregulation represented better survival outcome. The regulating role of TYK2 in HNSC was found mainly in several pathways including DNA replication, base excision repair, apoptosis, p53 signaling pathway, and NF-kappa B signaling pathway. The gene set enrichment analysis (GSEA) results showed that TYK2-significantly correlated genes were mainly enriched in several biological functional terms including cell cycle, DNA replication, PLK1 pathway, ATR pathway, and Rho GTPase pathway. In addition, TYK2 was found to be involved in tumor immunity, showing positive correlation with the majority of tumor infiltrating immune cells, immune checkpoint genes, and significant representative components of tumor microenvironment, according to the ESTIMATE-Stromal-Immune score.

Conclusions

Given the dysregulation, prognostic values, regulating tumor progression-related pathways, and the tumor immune-modulatory role of TYK2 in HNSC, the TYK2 gene should be regarded as a potential therapeutic target in treating head and neck cancer.

TYK2 in Cancer Metastases: Genomic and Proteomic Discovery

Advances in genomic analysis and proteomic tools have rapidly expanded identification of biomarkers and molecular targets important to cancer development and metastasis. On an individual basis, personalized medicine approaches allow better characterization of tumors and patient prognosis, leading to more targeted treatments by detection of specific gene mutations, overexpression, or activity. Genomic and proteomic screens by our lab and others have revealed tyrosine kinase 2 (TYK2) as an oncogene promoting progression and metastases of many types of carcinomas, sarcomas, and hematologic cancers. TYK2 is a Janus kinase (JAK) that acts as an intermediary between cytokine receptors and STAT transcription factors. TYK2 signals to stimulate proliferation and metastasis while inhibiting apoptosis of cancer cells. This review focuses on the growing evidence from genomic and proteomic screens, as well as molecular studies that link TYK2 to cancer prevalence, prognosis, and metastasis. In addition, pharmacological inhibition of TYK2 is currently used clinically for autoimmune diseases, and now provides promising treatment modalities as effective therapeutic agents against multiple types of cancer.

The circadian clock is associated with prognosis and immune infiltration in stomach adenocarcinoma

Background: Stomach adenocarcinoma (STAD) is one of the most prevalent malignances and ranks fifth in incidence and third in cancer-related death among all malignances. The prognosis of STAD is poor. The circadian clock is regulated by interlocked transcriptional-translational feedback loops that orchestrate circadian rhythms in some biological processes, including the immune response and metabolism. However, the association between core circadian clock genes and STAD patient prognosis is unclear.

Materials and Methods: In our study, bioinformatics methods were performed to explore the expression and prognostic value of core circadian clock genes in STAD and their association with immune infiltration.

Results: The mRNA levels of CLOCK, CRY1 and NR1D1 were upregulated, while the mRNA levels of CRY2, PER1, PER3 and RORA were downregulated in STAD tissues compared with normal tissues. Core circadian clock genes exert promoting or inhibiting effects on certain cancer-related hallmark pathways, including the DNA damage response, cell cycle, apoptosis and RAS/MAPK pathways. Moreover, core circadian clock genes were linked to drug sensitivity or drug resistance. Prognosis analysis revealed that high expression of PER1 and NR1D1 was associated with poor overall survival, progression-free survival, and disease-free survival rates in STAD patients. Validation analysis further confirmed our result. Immune infiltration analysis demonstrated that the expression of ICOSLG and CD70 was significantly correlated with immune cells, immune biomarkers, chemokines and their receptors.

Conclusions: Our results suggest that NR1D1 and PER1 are prognostic biomarkers and are associated with immune infiltration in STAD.