Comprehensive pan-cancer analysis of HSPG2 as a marker for prognosis

Abstract

Background

In recent years, several studies have shown that HSPG2 is associated with the prognosis of specific cancers. The aim of this study was to investigate the prognostic value of HSPG2 in pan-cancer and to analyze its possible mechanisms.

Methods

We used The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and Genotype-Tissue Expression (GTEx) to explore the expression of HSPG2 in 33 tumors and corresponding controls. Univariate Cox regression and Kaplan–Meier survival analysis were applied to detect the effects of HSPG2 on overall survival (OS), disease-specific survival (DSS), and progression-free interval (PFI) in patients with these tumors, and to analyze the relationship between HSPG2 and clinical characteristics. And we further analyzed the relationship between HSPG2 and immune infiltration, DNA methylation and single cell function. And GO and KEGG enrichment analyses were performed using HSPG2 co-expressed genes. Finally, we explored the diagnostic efficacy of HSPG2 for diseases of interest and validated it using qPCR experiment.

Results

HSPG2 was lowly expressed in 17 cancers and highly expressed in 11 cancers, and was correlated with patient's clinical characteristics in many cancers. Multivariate regression analysis showed that HSPG2 was an independent prognostic factor for DSS, OS, and PFI in bladder urothelial carcinoma (BLCA) and Mesothelioma (MESO). HSPG2 was correlated with DNA methylation, single-cell function, and immune infiltration in a variety of cancers. HSPG2 exhibited a good diagnostic efficacy for BLCA and MESO. qPCR and western blot results showed that HSPG2 expression was increased in mesothelioma compared to normal controls.

Conclusion

These findings suggest that HSPG2 could be considered as a potential diagnostic and prognostic marker for BLCA and MESO.