Downregulation of enhancer RNA EMX2OS is associated with poor prognosis in kidney renal clear cell carcinoma

Abstract

Enhancer RNAs are a subclass of long non-coding RNAs transcribed from enhancer regions that play an important role in the transcriptional regulation of genes. However, their role in kidney renal clear cell carcinoma (KIRC) is largely unknown. Herein, we identified the key enhancer RNAs in KIRC via an integrated data analysis method. Gene expression profiles and clinical data of KIRC and 32 other cancer types were acquired using the University of California Santa Cruz Xena platform. Reported enhancer RNAs and genes regulated by them were selected as putative enhancer RNA-target pairs. Kaplan-Meier survival and correlation analyses were performed to identify the key enhancer RNAs. Finally, EMX2OS was identified as the enhancer RNA most associated with survival, with EMX2 as its target. EMX2OS downregulation was significantly associated with higher histological grade, advanced stage, and poorer prognosis. The results were validated in pan-cancer data from The Cancer Genome Atlas and RT-qPCR analysis of 12 pairs of KIRC and normal real-world samples. Functional enrichment analysis indicated that several metabolism-associated signaling pathways were enriched. This study demonstrated that EMX2OS is a key metabolism-associated enhancer RNA in KIRC with a favorable impact on survival and may be a novel therapeutic target in KIRC.