Research Paper Volume 12, Issue 19 pp 18982—19011

POC1A acts as a promising prognostic biomarker associated with high tumor immune cell infiltration in gastric cancer

Jun Lu1,2,3, , Xiao-Yan Huang1,2,3, , Yao-Hui Wang1,2,3, , Jian-Wei Xie1,2,3, , Jia-Bin Wang1,2,3, , Jian-Xian Lin1,2,3, , Qi-Yue Chen1,2,3, , Long-Long Cao1,2,3, , Ping Li1,2,3, , Chang-Ming Huang1,2,3, , Chao-Hui Zheng1,2,3, ,

  • 1 Department of Gastric Surgery, Fujian Medical University Union Hospital, Fuzhou, China
  • 2 Department of General Surgery, Fujian Medical University Union Hospital, Fuzhou, China
  • 3 Key Laboratory of Ministry of Education of Gastrointestinal Cancer, Fujian Medical University, Fuzhou, China
* Equal contribution

Received: March 28, 2020       Accepted: June 4, 2020       Published: October 14, 2020      

https://doi.org/10.18632/aging.103624
How to Cite

Copyright: © 2020 Lu 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

The effect of POC1 centriolar protein A (POC1A) on gastric cancer (GC) has not been clearly defined. In this study, POC1A expression and clinical information in patients with GC were analyzed. Multiple databases were used to investigate the genes that were co-expressed with POC1A and genes whose changes co-occurred with genetic alternations of POC1A. Moreover, the TISIDB and TIMER databases were used to analyze immune infiltration. The GSE54129 GC dataset and LASSO regression model (tumor vs. normal) were employed, and 6 significant differentially expressed genes (LAMP5, CEBPB, ARMC9, PAOX, VMP1, POC1A) were identified. POC1A was selected for its high expression in adjacent tissues, which was confirmed with IHC. High POC1A expression was related to better overall and recurrence-free survival. GO and KEGG analyses demonstrated that POC1A may regulate the cell cycle, DNA replication and cell growth. Furthermore, POC1A was found to be correlated with immune infiltration levels in GC according to the TISIDB and TIMER databases. These findings indicate that POC1A acts as a tumor suppressor in GC by regulating the cell cycle and cell growth. In addition, POC1A preferentially regulates the immune infiltration of GC via several immune genes. However, the specific mechanism requires further study.

Abbreviations

POC1A: POC1 centriolar protein homolog A; GC: gastric cancer; TME: tumor microenvironment; TILs: tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes; STAD: stomach adenocarcinoma; EBV: Epstein–Barr virus; GEO: Gene Expression Omnibus; TCGA: The Cancer Genome Atlas; GO: Gene Ontology; KEGG: Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes; CNA: copy number alteration; CCs: evaluated cellular components; BPs: biological processes; MFs: molecular functions; HIS: immunohistochemical score; RFS: recurrence-free survival; OS: overall survival.