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Research Paper|Volume 15, Issue 17|pp 8664—8691

Pan-cancer analysis and experimental validation revealed the m6A methyltransferase KIAA1429 as a potential biomarker for diagnosis, prognosis, and immunotherapy

Chao Ma1,2, Qiming Zheng3, Yepeng Wang1, Guoxiang Li1, Mengmeng Zhao4, Zhigang Sun1
  • 1Department of Thoracic Surgery, Central Hospital Affiliated to Shandong First Medical University, Jinan 250013, Shandong, China
  • 2School of Clinical Medicine, Weifang Medical University, Weifang 261053, Shandong, China
  • 3Jinan Central Hospital, Shandong University, Jinan 250013, Shandong, China
  • 4Research Center of Translational Medicine, Central Hospital Affiliated to Shandong First Medical University, Jinan 250013, Shandong, China
Received: February 1, 2023Accepted: July 19, 2023Published: August 21, 2023
https://doi.org/10.18632/aging.204968

Copyright: © 2023 Ma 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

Background: KIAA1429, also known as VIRMA (vir-like m6A methyltransferase associated), plays a crucial role in tumorigenesis by modulating the level of m6A methylation. Previous studies have reported the prevalent overexpression of KIAA1429 in multiple cancers, related to a poor prognosis. Nevertheless, the precise role of KIAA1429 in tumor progression and its impact on the immune response remains unclear.

Methods: A differential analysis of KIAA1429 expression was performed across cancers using data from the Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and Genotype-Tissue Expression (GTEx) databases. We evaluated the role of KIAA1429 in the diagnosis, prognosis, and immunotherapy of tumor patients using bioinformatics methods. In addition, we also analyzed the associations between KIAA1429 and DNA methylation, immunotherapy. RT-qPCR was used to study the expression levels of KIAA1429 mRNA in 11 cell lines.

Results: KIAA1429 is found to be overexpressed in 28 cancer types, but its expression is relatively low in patients with acute myeloid leukemia (LAML) and ovarian serous cystadenocarcinoma (OV). Moreover, KIAA1429 demonstrates a positive correlation with advanced stages of multiple cancers. Kaplan-Meier (KM) analysis suggested that patients with elevated KIAA1429 expression had shorter survival. Furthermore, KIAA1429 shows strong associations with DNA methylation, tumor-infiltrating immune cells (TIICs), and the tumor microenvironment (TME). RT-qPCR results indicated significantly higher expression of KIAA1429 in tumor cells compared to matched-normal cells.

Conclusions: In summary, our work illustrates that KIAA1429 expression is positively connected with poor prognosis in multiple cancers. Moreover, KIAA1429 could serve as a diagnostic factor and a predictor of immune response for specific tumor types.