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Research Paper|Volume 16, Issue 1|pp 129—152

Systematic analysis of the prognostic value and immunological function of LTBR in human cancer

Yinteng Wu1, Shijian Zhao2, Wenliang Guo3, Ying Liu4, Marìa Del Mar Requena Mullor5, Raquel Alarcòn Rodrìguez5, Ruqiong Wei4
  • 1Department of Orthopedic and Trauma Surgery, The First Affiliated Hospital of Guangxi Medical University, Nanning, Guangxi 530021, China
  • 2Department of Cardiovascular Medicine, The First Affiliated Hospital of Guangxi Medical University, Nanning, Guangxi 530021, China
  • 3Department of Rehabilitation Medicine, The Eighth Affiliated Hospital of Guangxi Medical University, Guigang, Guangxi 537100, China
  • 4Department of Rehabilitation Medicine, The First Affiliated Hospital of Guangxi Medical University, Nanning, Guangxi 530021, China
  • 5Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Almerìa, La Cañada 04120, Almeria, Spain
* Equal contribution
Received: April 12, 2023Accepted: November 15, 2023Published: January 3, 2024
https://doi.org/10.18632/aging.205356

Copyright: © 2024 Wu et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Abstract

Lymphotoxin beta receptor (LTBR) is a positive T cell proliferation regulator gene. It is closely associated with the tumor immune microenvironment. However, its role in cancer and immunotherapy is unclear. Firstly, the expression level and prognostic value of LTBR were analyzed. Secondly, the expression of LTBR in clinical stages, immune subtypes, and molecular subtypes was analyzed. The correlation between LTBR and immune regulatory genes, immune checkpoint genes, and RNA modification genes was then analyzed. Correlations between LTBR and immune cells, scores, cancer-related functional status, tumor stemness index, mismatch repair (MMR) genes, and DNA methyltransferase were also analyzed. In addition, we analyzed the role of LTBR in DNA methylation, mutational status, tumor mutation burden (TMB), and microsatellite instability (MSI). Gene Ontology (GO), Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG), and Gene Set Enrichment Analysis (GSEA) were used to explore the role of LTBR in pan-cancer. Finally, the drugs associated with LTBR were analyzed. The expression of LTBR was confirmed using quantitative real-time PCR and Western blot. LTBR is significantly overexpressed in most cancers and is associated with low patient survival. In addition, LTBR expression was strongly correlated with immune cells, score, cancer-related functional status, tumor stemness index, MMR genes, DNA methyltransferase, DNA methylation, mutational status, TMB, and MSI. Enrichment analysis revealed that LTBR was associated with apoptosis, necroptosis, and immune-related pathways. Finally, multiple drugs targeting LTBR were identified. LTBR is overexpressed in several tumors and is associated with a poor prognosis. It is related to immune-related genes and immune cell infiltration.