Research Paper|Volume 15, Issue 24|pp 15064—15083

TMX family genes and their association with prognosis, immune infiltration, and chemotherapy in human pan-cancer

Na Luo^1,², Zhiqiang Mei¹, Qiqi Zhang³, Hong Tang⁴, Runlan Wan⁵, Anni Deng⁶, Xiaopan Zou⁷, Chaoxiang Lv¹

¹The Research Center for Preclinical Medicine, Southwest Medical University, Luzhou 646000, Sichuan, China
²School of Basic Medical Sciences, Southwest Medical University, Luzhou 646000, Sichuan, China
³Degree Office, The Graduate School of Southwest Medical University, Luzhou 646000, Sichuan, China
⁴Department of Pathology, Affiliated Hospital of Southwest Medical University, Luzhou 646000, Sichuan, China
⁵Department of Oncology, The Affiliated Hospital of Southwest Medical University, Luzhou 646000, Sichuan, China
⁶Department of Pediatrics, Southwest Medical University, Luzhou 646000, Sichuan, China
⁷Breast and Thyroid Surgery, Renmin Hospital, Jilin University, Changchun 130024, Jilin, China

* Equal contribution

Received: July 13, 2023Accepted: November 10, 2023Published: December 21, 2023

https://doi.org/10.18632/aging.205332

Copyright: © 2023 Luo et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Abstract

Background: The thioredoxin (TMX) system, an important redox system, plays crucial roles in several immune-related diseases. However, there is limited research on the correlation of TMX family gene expression with human pan-cancer prognosis, tumor microenvironment (TME), and immunotherapy.Methods: Based on the integration of several bioinformatics analysis methods, we explored the expression levels and prognostic value of TMX family members in pan-cancer and analyzed their association between TME, immune infiltration, stemness scores, and drug sensitivity. Using KEGG enrichment analysis, we explored the potential signaling pathways of their regulation. Additionally, we conducted a transwell assay to verify the relationship between TMX family gene expression and epithelial–mesenchymal transition (EMT) in liver cancer.

Results: Expression of the TMX family genes was shown to have an obvious intratumoral heterogeneity. In some cancers, TMX family members expression was also been found to correlate with poor prognosis of patients. Furthermore, TMX family genes may serve important roles in TME. The expression of TMX family genes was found to have a strong correlation with the stromal scores, immune scores, DNAss and RNAss in pan-cancer. Specifically, the expression levels of TMX family genes have been found to be associated with immune subtypes of renal clear cell carcinoma and liver hepatocellular carcinoma. High TMX2 expression promote EMT in liver cancer.

Conclusions: The findings of this study may elucidate the biological roles of TMX family genes as potential targets for pan-cancer and also offer valuable insights for further investigating how these genes function in the development and spreading of cancer.