Potential prognosis and immunotherapy predictor TFAP2A in pan-cancer

作者：Chenxi Niu, Haixuan Wen, Shutong Wang, Guang Shu, Maonan Wang, Hanxi Yi, Ke Guo, Qiong Pan, Gang Yin · 发表于：Aging · 年份：2024 · DOI：10.18632/aging.205225 · 被引用次数：12 · 研究领域：Ferroptosis and cancer prognosis、RNA modifications and cancer、interferon and immune responses

BACKGROUND: TFAP2A is critical in regulating the expression of various genes, affecting various biological processes and driving tumorigenesis and tumor development. However, the significance of TFAP2A in carcinogenesis processes remains obscure. METHODS: In our study, we explored multiple databases including TCGA, GTEx, HPA, cBioPortal, TCIA, and other well-established databases for further analysis to expound TFAP2A expression, genetic alternations, and their relationship with the prognosis and cellular signaling network alternations. GO term and KEGG pathway enrichment analysis as well as GSEA were conducted to examine the common functions of TFAP2A. RT-qPCR, Western Blot and Dual Luciferase Reporter assay were employed to perform experimental validation. RESULTS: TFAP2A mRNA expression level was upregulated and its genetic alternations were frequently present in most cancer types. The enrichment analysis results prompted us to investigate the changes in the tumor immune microenvironment further. We discovered that the expression of TFAP2A was significantly associated with the expression of immune checkpoint genes, immune subtypes, ESTIMATE scores, tumor-infiltrating immune cells, and the possible role of TFAP2A in predicting immunotherapy efficacy. In addition, high TFAP2A expression significantly correlated with several ICP genes, and promoted the expression of PD-L1 on mRNA and protein levels through regulating its expression at the transcriptional level. TFAP2A protein...