FCHO1 Is a Prognostic Biomarker of Colon Adenocarcinoma and Associated with Immune Infiltration and Glycolysis

Abstract

Background Colon adenocarcinoma (COAD) is a common digestive tract tumor and the molecular mechanism is very complicated. Overexpression of FCHO1 plays the role of oncogene or tumor suppressor gene in the process of tumorigenesis and development. However, possible mechanisms of FCHO1 in COAD remains unknown. Methods Online database Oncomine, TIMER and TCGA were used to clarify the expression level of FCHO1 in COAD. Using receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve and GEIPA database to evaluate the prognostic value of FCHO1 in COAD. Then, STRING and GeneMANIA database were used to construct the protein-protein interaction network. The GO/KEGG enrichment analysis were performed by Using Funrich. Co-expression genes of FCHO1 were acquired by Linkedomics database, GSEA analysis was used to explore the possible pathway in co-expression genes of FCHO1. The correlation between FCHO1 expression and hypoxia-related genes, glycolysis-related genes and immune infiltrates was analyzed using the TIMER, Starbase and TCGA cohort. Results Our results revealed that high expression level of FCHO1 was significantly increased in COAD tissues than normal tissue. High expression of FCHO1 in COAD predicted worse survival, including OS (HR = 1.8 p = 0.0022), DFS (HR = 1.6 p = 0.043). GSEA analysis showed that co-expression genes were significantly linked with MicroRNAs in cancer, Oxidative phosphorylation, Cell cycle, Notch signaling pathway, VEGF signaling pathway and p53 signaling pathway. Further, the result revealed that hypoxia-related genes (NFKB1, VEGFB) was simultaneously positively correlated with FCHO1 expression in TIMER, Starbase database. Glycolysis-related genes (HK1, G6PD and SLC2A1) was positively associated with FCHO1 expression in TIMER, Starbase database. At the same time, PDCD1 and LAG3 expression, which as immune checkpoint, were positively correlated with FCHO1 expression. Conclusion Collectively, FCHO1 may act as a promising diagnostic and prognostic biomarker and correlated with hypoxia, glycolysis and immune infiltration in COAD.