Solute carrier family 16 member 1 as a potential prognostic factor for pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma and its influence on tumor immunity

Meng Wang; Lin Liu; Xinze Li; Wenna Jiang; Jiawei Xiao; Qianhui Hao; Jiayi Wang; Abhinav V Reddy; Alice Talbot; Shinichi Ikuta; Derun Tian; Li Ren

doi:10.21037/jgo-24-147

Solute carrier family 16 member 1 as a potential prognostic factor for pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma and its influence on tumor immunity

J Gastrointest Oncol. 2024 Apr 30;15(2):730-746. doi: 10.21037/jgo-24-147. Epub 2024 Apr 28.

Authors

Meng Wang^#^{1

2}, Lin Liu^#¹, Xinze Li¹, Wenna Jiang¹, Jiawei Xiao¹, Qianhui Hao¹, Jiayi Wang¹, Abhinav V Reddy³, Alice Talbot⁴, Shinichi Ikuta⁵, Derun Tian^{2

6}, Li Ren¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Clinical Laboratory, Tianjin Medical University Cancer Institute and Hospital, National Clinical Research Center for Cancer, Key Laboratory of Cancer Prevention and Therapy, Tianjin, China.
² Department of Clinical Laboratory Diagnostics, Tianjin Medical University, Tianjin, China.
³ Radiation Oncology, Northside Hospital, Atlanta, GA, USA.
⁴ Department of Oncology, St. John of God Hospital, Subiaco, WA, Australia.
⁵ Department of Surgery, Meiwa Hospital, Nishinomiya, Hyogo, Japan.
⁶ Department of Human Anatomy and Histology, Tianjin Medical University, Tianjin, China.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

Background: Solute carrier family 16 member 1 (SLC16A1) serves as a biomarker in numerous types of cancer. Tumor immune infiltration has drawn increasing attention in cancer progression and treatment. The objective of our study was to explore the association between SLC16A1 and the tumor immune microenvironment in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC).

Methods: Data were obtained from The Cancer Genome Atlas. The xCell web tool was used to calculate the proportion of immune cells according to SLC16A1 expression. To further explore the mechanism of SLC16A1, immunity-related genes were screened from differentially expressed genes through weighted gene coexpression network analysis, examined via Gene Ontology and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes analyses, and filtrated using univariate Cox regression and least absolute shrinkage and selection operator regression model combined correlation analysis (P<0.05). Next, CIBERSORT was used to analyze the correlation between immune cells and five important genes. SLC16A1 expression and its clinical role in pancreatic cancer was clarified via immunohistochemical staining experiments. Finally, the effects of SLC16A1 on the results of cancer immunity were evaluated by in vitro experiments.

Results: SLC16A1 was overexpressed in PDAC tissues and could be an independent prognostic factor. SLC16A1 was significantly negatively correlated with overall survival and suppressed the tumor immunity of PDAC. In clinic, SLC16A1 expression was significantly positively correlated with tumor progression and poor prognosis. We also found that SLC16A1 could suppress the antitumor ability of CD8⁺ T cells.

Conclusions: SLC16A1 is a biomarker for the prognosis of PDAC and can influence the immune environment of PDAC. These findings provide new insights into the treatment of PDAC.

Keywords: Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC); bioinformatics; solute carrier family 16 member 1; tumor immunity; tumor microenvironment (TME).