Comprehensive Analysis of ANLN in Human Tumors: A Prognostic Biomarker Associated with Cancer Immunity

Abstract

Background: Anillin (ANLN), a ubiquitously expressed actin-binding protein, plays a critical tumor-promoting role in cell growth, migration, and cytokinesis. Numerous studies have suggested that ANLN is upregulated in many cancer types, as well as significantly associated with patient prognosis and malignant cancer characteristics. Herein, we performed an integrated pan-cancer analysis of ANLN and highlighted its underlying mechanism, which may benefit further exploration of the potential therapeutic options for cancer.

Methods: ANLN expression data were extracted from online databases, including TCGA, GTEx, and CCLE databases. The TIMER database was used to study the association between ANLN expression with immune checkpoint genes and immunocyte infiltration. The ScanNeo pipeline was adopted for neoantigen discovery. KEGG analysis and the STRING tool were used to elucidate the potential mechanism of ANLN in cancer development.

Results: ANLN is abnormally overexpressed in almost all cancer tissues compared with normal tissues. The high-ANLN expression level was positively associated with various malignant characteristics, suggesting its potential role in the immune microenvironment and poor prognosis. In addition, ANLN expression was correlated with the number of neoantigens and different phosphorylation pattern in various cancer types, revealing a functional role of genetic mutation accumulation and high phosphorylation in ANLN-mediated oncogenesis. Moreover, we found that ANLN was an important regulatory factor participating in many signaling events, especially the cell cycle and nucleocytoplasmic transport pathways.

Conclusions: ANLN expression is generally overexpressed in various types of cancers, and it may have an important influence on tumor progression and development. ANLN expression is significantly associated with the immune checkpoint biomarkers and tumor immunity. Together, these findings suggest that ANLN may be a predictive marker for patient prognosis across cancers.