Expression of RFC5 in cervical cancer and its effect on the prognosis and immune regulation as well as its related mechanism
10.3760/cma.j.cn115355-20230905-00080
- VernacularTitle:RFC5在子宫颈癌中的表达及其对预后、免疫调控的影响和相关机制
- Author:
Yuting XIA
1
;
Xiangrong CUI
;
Yun SHANG
Author Information
1. 山西医科大学附属运城市中心医院妇科，运城 044000
- Keywords:
Uterine cervical neoplasms;
Replication protein C;
Prognosis
- From:
Cancer Research and Clinic
2024;36(8):561-568
- CountryChina
- Language:Chinese
-
Abstract:
Objective:To investigate the expression of replication factor C5 (RFC5) in cervical cancer, and its effect on the prognosis and immune regulation as well as its related mechanism.Methods:RFC5 mRNA expression data and the clinical data of 280 cervical cancer patients were downloaded from the Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database in May 2023. The difference of RFC5 mRNA expression between cervical cancer tissues and paracancerous normal tissues was compared and the expression of RFC5 mRNA in patients with different clinicopathological characteristics was analyzed. According to the median expression level of RFC5 mRNA in cancer tissues, 280 patients were divided into the high expression group and the low expression group. Kaplan-Meier method was used for survival analysis, and log-rank test was used for comparison. Gene Expression Profiling Interactive Analysis (GEPIA) 2 online tool was used to verify the relationship between RFC5 gene expression and the prognosis of cervical cancer. Univariate and multivariate Cox proportional risk models were used to analyze the factors influencing the overall survival (OS) of patients with cervival cancer in TCGA database. LinkedOmics database was used to screen the co-differentially expressed genes (DEG) related to RFC5 in cervical cancer. Gene Ontology (GO) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genesand Genomes (KEGG) pathway enrichment analysis of DEG related to RFC5 were performed based on the DAVID database. Based on the Tumor Immune Estimation Resource (TIMER) database, the relationship between RFC5 expression and tumor infiltrating immune cells in cervival cancer was analyzed by using Spearman method. The relationship between RFC5 expression and immunomodulatory factors in cervical cancer was analyzed based on tumor-immune system interactions database (TISIDB). The expression of RFC5 protein in cervical cancer tissues was analyzed based on Human Protein Atlas (HPA) database. The expression of RFC5 in pan-cancer and its correlation with OS were analyzed based on GEPIA2 online tool.Results:In TCGA database, the relative expression level of RFC5 mRNA in cervical cancer tissues (277 cases) was higher than that in paracancerous normal tissues (3 cases), and the difference was statistically significant ( P < 0.001), while there were no significant differences in the relative expression level of RFC5 mRNA in cancer tissues of patients with different age, pathological type and clinical staging (all P > 0.05). The OS of cervival cancer patients in high RFC5 expression group (139 cases) was better than that of patients in low RFC5 expression group (138 cases), and the difference was statistically significant ( P = 0.027). GEPIA tool verification indicated that expression of RFC5 in cervical cancer and its relationship with OS showed the same results. GO and KEGG enrichment analysis showed that RFC5-related genes were mainly involved in DNA replication, cell cycle, Fanconi anemia, mismatch repair, base excision repair, nucleotide excision repair and other signaling pathways. Multivariate Cox regression analysis showed that age ≥ 65 years, clinical staging Ⅳ and the low expression of RFC5 were independent risk factors of poor OS in patients with cervical cancer (all P < 0.05). TIMER database analysis showed that the expression of RFC5 was positively correlated with tumor purity ( rho = 0.198, P < 0.001), while weakly correlated or not correlated with the infiltration levels of B cells ( rho = 0.062, P = 0.306), CD8 + T cells ( rho = 0.168, P = 0.005), CD4 + T cells ( rho = -0.049, P = 0.418), macrophages ( rho = 0.034, P = 0.577), neutrophils ( rho = 0.169, P = 0.005) and bone marrow dendritic cells ( rho = 0.026, P = 0.667). Analysis of TISIDB data showed that RFC5 expression was mostly negatively correlated with immunosuppressive factors and immunostimulatory factors. HPA database showed that the expression level of RFC5 in cervical cancer tissues was higher than that in normal cervical tissues. GEPIA online tool database analysis showed that RFC5 expression was up-regulated in a variety of malignant tumors. The OS of thymoma patients with high RFC5 expression was better than that of those with low RFC5 expression, while the OS of acute myeloid leukemia patients with high RFC5 expression was worse than those with low RFC5 expression, and the differences in OS were statistically significant (both P < 0.05). Conclusions:RFC5 is highly expressed in cervical cancer and its expression is associated with prognosis of patients with cervival cancer. Overexpression of RFC5 may inhibit the expression of immunomodulatory factors, and it may regulate the development and progression of cervical cancer through DNA replication, cell cycle, mismatch repair, base excision repair and other related pathways.
