Integrative analysis of WDR12 as a potential prognostic and immunological biomarker in multiple human tumors

Refaat A Eid; Muhammad Alaa Eldeen; Mohamed A Soltan; Mubarak Al-Shraim; Majed Aldehri; Leena S Alqahtani; Ghadi Alsharif; Sarah Albogami; Ibrahim Jafri; Eman Fayad; Moon Nyeo Park; Shabana Bibi; Mohammed Y Behairy; Bonglee Kim; Mohamed Samir A Zaki

doi:10.3389/fgene.2022.1008502

Integrative analysis of WDR12 as a potential prognostic and immunological biomarker in multiple human tumors

Front Genet. 2023 Jan 16:13:1008502. doi: 10.3389/fgene.2022.1008502. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Refaat A Eid¹, Muhammad Alaa Eldeen², Mohamed A Soltan³, Mubarak Al-Shraim¹, Majed Aldehri⁴, Leena S Alqahtani⁵, Ghadi Alsharif⁶, Sarah Albogami⁷, Ibrahim Jafri⁷, Eman Fayad⁷, Moon Nyeo Park⁸, Shabana Bibi^{9

10}, Mohammed Y Behairy¹¹, Bonglee Kim⁸, Mohamed Samir A Zaki^{4

12}

Affiliations

¹ Pathology Department, College of Medicine, King Khalid University, Abha, Saudi Arabia.
² Cell Biology, Histology & Genetics Division, Biology Department, Faculty of Science, Zagazig University, Zagazig, Egypt.
³ Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Faculty of Pharmacy, Sinai University, Ismailia, Egypt.
⁴ Anatomy Department, College of Medicine, King Khalid University, Abha, Saudi Arabia.
⁵ Department of Biochemistry, College of Science, University of Jeddah, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
⁶ College of Clinical Laboratory Sciences, King Saud bin Abdulaziz University for Health Sciences, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
⁷ Department of Biotechnology, College of Sciences, Taif University, Taif, Saudi Arabia.
⁸ Department of Pathology, College of Korean Medicine, Kyung Hee University, Seoul, South Korea.
⁹ Department of Biosciences, Shifa Tameer-e-Millat University, Islamabad, Pakistan.
¹⁰ Yunnan Herbal Laboratory, College of Ecology and Environmental Sciences, Yunnan University, Kunming, Yunnan, China.
¹¹ Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Sadat City, Sadat City, Egypt.
¹² Department of Histology and Cell Biology, College of Medicine, Zagazig University, Zagazig, Egypt.

Abstract

Background: Mammalian WD-repeat protein 12 (WDR12), a family member of proteins containing repeats of tryptophan-aspartic acid (WD), is a potential homolog of yeast Ytm1p and consists of seven repeats of WD. Aim of the study: This study aims to investigate the potential oncogenic effects of WDR12 in various human malignancies throughout a pan-cancer analysis that has been carried out to examine the various patterns in which this gene is expressed and behaves in tumor tissues. Methods: Herein, we used The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and various computational tools to explore expression profiles, prognostic relevance, genetic mutations, immune cell infiltration, as well as the functional characteristics of WDR12 in multiple human cancers. Results: We found that WDR12 was inconsistently expressed in various cancers and that variations in WDR12 expression predicted survival consequences for cancer patients. Furthermore, we observed a significant correlation between WDR12 gene mutation levels and the prognosis of some tumors. Furthermore, significant correlations were found between WDR12 expression patterns and cancer-associated fibroblast (CAF) infiltration, myeloid-derived suppressor cells (MDSCs), tumor mutation burden, microsatellite instability and immunoregulators. Ultimately, pathway enrichment analysis revealed that WDR12-related pathways are involved in carcinogenesis. Conclusions: The findings of our study are stisfactory, demonstrating that WDR12 could serve as a promising reliable prognostic biomarker, as well as a therapeutic target for novel cancer therapeutic approaches.

Keywords: WDR12; expression; immunotherapy; pan-cancer; prognosis.

Grants and funding

The Deanship of Scientific Research of King Khalid University in Abha, Saudi Arabia, entirely supported this research (Grant No. G.R.P.1-27-43). This research was also supported by Basic Science Research Program through the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) funded by the Ministry of Education (NRF-2020R1I1A2066868), the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) grant funded by the Korea government (MSIT) (No. 2020R1A5A2019413), a grant of the Korea Health Technology R&D Project through the Korea Health Industry Development Institute (KHIDI), funded by the Ministry of Health & Welfare, Republic of Korea (grant number: HF20C0116), and a grant of the Korea Health Technology R&D Project through the Korea Health Industry Development Institute (KHIDI), funded by the Ministry of Health & Welfare, Republic of Korea (grant number: HF20C0038).