Comprehensive analysis of the expression and prognosis for COL4A family genes in kidney renal clear cell carcinoma

Abstract

Background COL4A family genes are a group of genes related to the extracellular matrix, which have been proven to be associated with various cancers. However, its relationship with kidney renal clear cell carcinoma (KIRC) has not been reported. Methods Hence, we obtained the data of differential expression and survival time of COL4A genes in KIRC from an online open-access database including ONCOMINE, UALCAN, GEPIA, Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database, cBioPortal, Metascape, and STRING. Results We found significant overexpression in COL4A1, COL4A2 while COL4A 3, COL4A4, COL4A5, and COL4A6 has decreased in tumor tissues. Moreover, almost all COL4A family genes obviously correlated with individual cancer stages of KIRC; and higher expression of COL4A1/2/3/BP/4 was found to accompany better overall survival time (OS) while COL4A5 with a lower OS in KIRC patients. We also found that the COL4A genes altered group had longer OS and DFS than unaltered teams.