Metabolic reprogramming is common in various cancers. Targeting metabolism to treat tumors is a hot research topic at present. Among them, changes in glucose metabolism in cancer have been widely studied. The Warburg effect maintains a high metabolic level in the tumor, accompanied by changes in glucose transporters. The transmembrane transport of sugar was previously thought to be mediated by SGLT and GLUT. Recently, the Solute Carrier Family(SLC) 45 family may be the third sugar transporter. But the role and value of the SLC45 family in melanoma, a highly malignant skin tumor, is unclear. Our study found that the four members of the SLC45 family, SLC45A1-SLC45A4, were differentially expressed in melanoma, but only SLC45A2 and SLC45A3 had prognostic guiding values. Further analysis revealed that the co-expression patterns of SLC45A2 and SLC45A3 were enriched in multiple metabolic pathways, suggesting their potential role in melanoma. In addition, SLC45A2 and SLC45A3 are also associated with immune cell infiltration. In conclusion, SLC45A2 and SLC45A3 are good prognostic indicators for melanoma and have guiding value for the treatment of melanoma in the future.
Keywords: Melanoma; bioinformatics; immunotherapy; solute carrier; transporter.