Bioinformatics analysis for the role of CALR in human cancers

PLoS One. 2021 Dec 15;16(12):e0261254. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0261254. eCollection 2021.

Abstract

Cancer is one of the most important public health problems in the world. The curative effect of traditional surgery, radiotherapy and chemotherapy is limited and has inevitable side effects. As a potential target for tumor therapy, few studies have comprehensively analyzed the role of CALR in cancers. Therefore, by using GeneCards, UALCAN, GEPIA, Kaplan-Meier Plotter, COSMIC, Regulome Explorer, String, GeneMANIA and TIMER databases, we collected and analyzed relevant data to conduct in-depth bioinformatics research on the CALR expression in Pan-cancer to assess the possibility of CALR as a potential therapeutic target and survival biomarker. We studied the CALR expression in normal human tissues and various tumors of different stages, and found that CALR expression was associated with relapse free survival (RFS). We verified the expression of CALR in breast cancer cell lines by vitro experiments. Mutations of CALR were widely present in tumors. CALR interacted with different genes and various proteins. In tumors, a variety of immune cells are closely related to CALR. In conclusion, CALR can be used as a biomarker for predicting prognosis and a potential target for tumor molecular and immunotherapy.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Calreticulin / genetics*
  • Calreticulin / metabolism
  • Cell Line, Tumor
  • Computational Biology / methods*
  • Databases, Genetic
  • Humans
  • Neoplasms / genetics*
  • Prognosis

Substances

  • CALR protein, human
  • Calreticulin

Grants and funding

Huimin Zhang was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 81702632).The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.