Research Paper Volume 14, Issue 6 pp 2880—2901

A systematic pan-cancer study demonstrates the oncogenic function of heterogeneous nuclear ribonucleoprotein C

Chenxi Pan1,2, , Qian Wu1, , Nianjie Feng1, ,

  • 1 Key Laboratory of Fermentation Engineering (Ministry of Education), National “111” Center for Cellular Regulation and Molecular Pharmaceutics, Hubei Key Laboratory of Industrial Microbiology, Hubei Research Center of Food Fermentation Engineering and Technology, Hubei University of Technology, Wuhan 430068, China
  • 2 The Second Affiliated Hospital of Dalian Medical University, Dalian 116027, China

Received: December 13, 2021       Accepted: March 14, 2022       Published: March 28, 2022      

https://doi.org/10.18632/aging.203981
How to Cite

Copyright: © 2022 Pan et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Abstract

Although complex links between heterogeneous nuclear ribonucleoprotein C (HNRNPC) and numerous types of cancer have been shown in both cell and animal models, a comprehensive pan-cancer investigation on the features and activities of HNRNPC is still lacking. Based on the Cancer Genome Atlas and Gene Expression Omnibus datasets, we investigated the possible oncogenic effects of HNRNPC in thirty-three cancers. HNRNPC expression was detected in the majority of cancers, and its expression level was shown to be significantly linked with cancer patient prognosis. HNRNPC increased the phosphorylation of S220, which was detected in various cancers, including ovarian cancer and colon cancer. HNRNPC expression was also shown to be related to cancer-associated cell infiltration, most notably in uveal melanoma, testicular germ cell tumors, and thymoma. Additionally, the signaling pathway for vascular endothelial growth factors and RNA transport were implicated in HNRNPC's functioning processes. In short, HNRNPC may further influence cancer progression through gene mutation, protein phosphorylation, cancer associated fibroblasts infiltration and related molecular pathways. This work was intended to provide a relatively thorough knowledge of the oncogenic activities of HNRNPC across a variety of tumor types by performing a systematic pan-cancer investigation.

Abbreviations

HNRNPC: heterogeneous nuclear ribonucleoprotein C; BRCA: breast cancer; LUAD: lung adenocarcinoma; TCGA: the Cancer Genome Atlas; UALCAN: the University of Alabama Cancer Database; CPTAC: The Clinical proteomic tumor analysis consortium; ccRCC: clear cell renal cell carcinoma; UCEC: uterine corpus endometrial carcinoma; OS: overall survival; DFS: disease-free survival; CAN: copy number alteration; PFS: Progression-free survival; 3D: three-dimensional; Cor: the partial correlation; CHOL: Cholangiocarcinoma; ESCA: Esophageal carcinoma; GBM: Glioblastoma multiforme; HNSC: Head and Neck squamous cell carcinoma; KICH: Kidney chromophobe; LICH: Liver hepatocellular carcinoma; ACC: adrenocortical carcinoma; KIRC: kidney renal clear cell carcinoma; KIRP: kidney renal papillary cell carcinoma; SKCM: skin cutaneous melanoma; TGCT: testicular germ cell tumors; SARC: Sarcoma; PAAD: Pancreatic adenocarcinoma; IFN-γ: Interferon γ; UYM: uveal melanoma.