AUTHOR=Yuan Ziming , Zhong Yuchen , Hu Hanqing , Zhang Weiyuan , Wang Guiyu 

TITLE=DEF6 has potential to be a biomarker for cancer prognosis: A pan-cancer analysis

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Oncology

VOLUME=12

YEAR=2023

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/oncology/articles/10.3389/fonc.2022.1064376

DOI=10.3389/fonc.2022.1064376

ISSN=2234-943X

ABSTRACT=<sec><title>Introduction</title><p><italic>DEF6</italic> is a gene associated with the immune system and is thought to play a crucial role in autoimmunity. There are few <italic>DEF6</italic>-related studies in cancer, and it is assumed that <italic>DEF6</italic> is a proto-oncogene. There is currently no pan-cancer analysis of <italic>DEF6</italic>, and we performed a systematic and comprehensive pan-cancer analysis of <italic>DEF6</italic> in an attempt to reveal its role and function in cancer.</p></sec><sec><title>Methods</title><p>The data were analyzed by mining databases available to the public and by using R software. Moreover, immunohistochemistry was used to validate the results.</p></sec><sec><title>Results</title><p>Our results revealed that <italic>DEF6</italic> is commonly aberrantly expressed in cancer and its expression is strongly correlated with survival prognosis in a variety of cancer types. Through correlation analysis we found that <italic>DEF6</italic> was associated with multiple immune genes and was closely related to immune infiltration. In the enrichment analysis, <italic>DEF6</italic> may have cross-talk with multiple cancer pathways and exert oncogenic or pro-cancer functions. In addition, we collected pathological samples from colorectal cancer patients for immunohistochemical analysis and found that patients with higher immunohistochemical scores had more lymph node metastases, higher CA199, and bigger tumor size.</p></sec><sec><title>Discussion</title><p>Overall, <italic>DEF6</italic> expression is closely related to cancers and has the potential to act as a cancer biomarker.</p></sec>