Identification of INHBA as a Potential Biomarker for Gastric Cancer by Comprehensive Analysis

Abstract

BackgroundInhibin subunit beta A (INHBA) is a member of the TGF-beta (transforming growth factor-beta) superfamily proteins, which plays a fundamental role in various cancers. However, there is little systematical analysis on the exact role of INHBA in patients with gastric cancer (GC). Herein, we explored the exact role and the underlying mechanisms of INHBA regarding GC using multiple bioinformatic approaches. MethodsThe expression levels of INHBA in GC were analyzed in TIMER, GEPIA2, GEO, Oncomine and UALCAN databases. Protein and PCR test were performed to verify the expression states of INHBA in GC tissues. The correlation of INHBA and prognosis of GC was analyzed based on Kaplan Meier plotter database. Besides, the relationship between INHBA expression and immune infiltration levels and the type markers of immune cells in GC was explored in the TIMER database. What’s more, we studied INHBA mutations, promoter methylation, functional enrichment analysis in GC patients based on cBioportal, MEXPRESS, Metascape and LinkedOmics databases. Besides, we performed immunohistochemistry (IHC) and polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR ) verification in tissues from patients with gastric cancerResultsINHBA was elevated in GC and high expression level of INHBA in GC was significantly related to the unfavorable prognosis. Protein and PCR test verified the highly expression states of INHBA in GC tissues. Further analysis showed that INHBA was negatively correlated with B cell while positively correlated with the marker type of CD8+ T cells, macrophage, neutrophil and dendritic cell infiltration. High INHBA expression level had a poor prognosis in different enriched immune cells subgroups in GC. And there is week significant methylation level change between tumor and normal tissues. Moreover, INHBA mainly enriched cancer-related signaling pathways, including TGF-beta signaling pathway, ECM-receptor signaling pathway, PID ALK1/2 pathway, and AGE-RAGE signaling pathway. ConclusionsThe present study implies that INHBA may serve as a potential biomarkers for predicting prognosis in GC patients. High INHBA expression in GC may affect prognosis through immune infiltration.

Identification of tumor-associated antigens with diagnostic ability of colorectal cancer by in-depth immunomic and seroproteomic analysis

“…IgGs isolated from the plasma of CRC patients and protein extracts from CRC cell lines.Previous studies applying mass spectrometry approaches have permitted the identification of autoantibodies against TAAs in different types of cancer, including CRC[40][41][42]. However, these studies have been mainly focused on combining immunoblotting of protein extracts separated by 2DE-gels  '  f f f   and their subsequent protein identification by mass spectrometry, limiting the identification to medium or highly abundant TAAs.…”