CFP is a prognostic biomarker and correlated with immune infiltrates in Gastric Cancer and Lung Cancer

Guoliang Cui; Le Geng; Li Zhu; Zhenyan Lin; Xuan Liu; Zhengyue Miao; Jintao Jiang; Xiaoke Feng; Fei Wei

doi:10.7150/jca.50832

CFP is a prognostic biomarker and correlated with immune infiltrates in Gastric Cancer and Lung Cancer

J Cancer. 2021 Apr 12;12(11):3378-3390. doi: 10.7150/jca.50832. eCollection 2021.

Authors

Guoliang Cui^{1

2

3}, Le Geng^{1

2}, Li Zhu³, Zhenyan Lin^{1

2}, Xuan Liu^{1

2}, Zhengyue Miao^{1

2}, Jintao Jiang^{1

2}, Xiaoke Feng^{1

2}, Fei Wei⁴

Affiliations

¹ Department of Traditional Chinese Medicine, The First Affiliated Hospital of Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing 210029, Jiangsu, China.
² Institute of Integrated Chinese and Western Medicine, Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing 210029, Jiangsu, China.
³ The Second Affiliated Hospital of Nanjing University of Chinese Medicine, Nanjing 210017, Jiangsu, China.
⁴ Department of Physiology, School of medicine & Holistic Integrative Medicine, Nanjing University of Chinese Medicine, Nanjing 210023, Jiangsu, China.

Abstract

Complement factor properdin (CFP), encodes plasma glycoprotein, is a critical gene that regulates the complement pathway of the innate immune system. However, correlations of CFP in cancers remain unclear. In this study, the expression pattern and prognostic value of CFP in pan-cancer were analyzed via the Oncomine, PrognoScan, GEPIA and Kaplan-Meier plotters. In addition, we used immunohistochemical staining to validate CFP expression in clinical tissue samples. Finally, we evaluated the correlations between CFP and cancer immune infiltrates particularly in stomach adenocarcinoma (STAD) and lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD) by using GEPIA and TIMER databases. The results of database analysis and immunohistochemistry showed that the expression level of CFP in STAD and LUAD was lower than that in normal tissues. Low expression level of CFP was associated with poorer overall survival (OS), first progression (FP), post progression survival (PPS) and was detrimental to the prognosis of STAD and LUAD, specifically in stage 3, stage T3, stage N2 and N3 of STAD (P<0.05). Moreover, expression of CFP had significant positive correlations with the infiltration levels of CD8+ T cells, CD4+ T cells, macrophages, neutrophils and dendritic cells (DCs) in STAD and LUAD. Furthermore, gene markers of infiltrating immune cells exhibited different CFP-related immune infiltration patterns such as tumor-associated-macrophages (TAMs). These results suggest that CFP can serve as a prognostic biomarker for determining prognosis and immune infiltration in STAD and LUAD.

Keywords: complement factor properdin; gastric cancer; lung cancer; prognostic biomarker; tumor microenvironment.