Research Paper Volume 14, Issue 2 pp 1033—1047
Pan-cancer analysis reveals NUP37 as a prognostic biomarker correlated with the immunosuppressive microenvironment in glioma
- 1 Department of Physical Examination Center, Jiangjin Central Hospital of Chongqing, Jiangjin, Chongqing 402260, China
- 2 Department of Neurosurgery, Jiangjin Central Hospital of Chongqing, Jiangjin, Chongqing 402260, China
- 3 Department of Neurology, Jiangjin Central Hospital of Chongqing, Jiangjin, Chongqing 402260, China
Received: October 11, 2021 Accepted: January 17, 2022 Published: January 30, 2022
https://doi.org/10.18632/aging.203862How to Cite
Copyright: © 2022 He et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Abstract
Nucleoporin 37 kDa (NUP37), a member of the nucleoporin family, has been reported to regulate the proliferation and apoptosis of several tumor types. However, its role in the tumor immune microenvironment is unclear. Here, we evaluated the expression, methylation, copy number alteration, and prognostic significance of NUP37 using RNA-seq and clinical data from The Cancer Genome Atlas. We observed higher expression of NUP37 in 28 of 29 tumor types, and high NUP37 expression predicted worse survival status of patients in 15 tumors. Using data from the cBioportal database, we described the gene variation of NUP37 in glioma and pan-cancer. We further assessed the role of NUP37 in the tumor immune microenvironment using immune infiltration data. NUP37 expression was positively associated with the infiltration levels of immunosuppressive cells, such as nTregs, iTregs, and tumor-associated macrophages, and negatively correlated with immune killer cells, such as CD8+ T and NK cells across cancers. Furthermore, NUP37 expression was associated with immune checkpoints and immune regulation-related genes. The half-maximal inhibitory concentrations of anti-cancer drugs were obtained from the Genomics of Drug Sensitivity in the Cancer database. The correlation between half-maximal inhibitory concentration and NUP37 expression was evaluated. The patients with the evaluated expression of NUP37 were resistant to several anti-cancer drugs. These results suggest that NUP37 is a potential oncogene and prognostic biomarker in glioma and pan-cancer. Tumor tissues with high NUP37 expression exist in a relatively immunosuppressive microenvironment and are resistant to several anti-cancer drugs.
Abbreviations
ACC: Adrenocortical carcinoma; BLCA: Bladder Urothelial Carcinoma; BRCA: Breast invasive carcinoma; CESC: Cervical squamous cell carcinoma and endocervical adenocarcinoma; CHOL: Cholangiocarcinoma; COAD: Colon adenocarcinoma; DLBC: Lymphoid Neoplasm Diffuse Large B-cell Lymphoma; ESCA: Esophageal carcinoma; GBM: Glioblastoma multiforme; HNSC: Head and Neck squamous cell carcinoma; KICH: Kidney Chromophobe; KIRC: Kidney renal clear cell carcinoma; KIRP: Kidney renal papillary cell carcinoma; LAML: Acute Myeloid Leukemia; LGG: Lower Grade Glioma; LIHC: Liver hepatocellular carcinoma; LUAD: Lung adenocarcinoma; LUSC: Lung squamous cell carcinoma; MESO: Mesothelioma; OV: Ovarian serous cystadenocarcinoma; PAAD: Pancreatic adenocarcinoma; PCPG: Pheochromocytoma and Paraganglioma; PRAD: Prostate adenocarcinoma; READ: Rectum adenocarcinoma; SARC: Sarcoma; SKCM: Skin Cutaneous Melanoma; STAD: Stomach adenocarcinoma; TGCT: Testicular Germ Cell Tumor; THCA: Thyroid carcinoma; THYM: Thymoma; UCEC: Uterine Corpus Endometrial Carcinoma; UCS: Uterine Carcinosarcoma; UVM: Uveal Melanoma; TCGA: The Cancer Genome Atlas; CCLE: Cancer Cell Line Encyclopedia; GTEx: Genotype-Tissue Expression; GDSC: Genomics of Drug Sensitivity in Cancer database.