Previous studies have determined that aberrant expression of the fas-associated death domain (FADD) contributes to the development of cancer. However, no pan-cancer analysis has been reported to explore the relationship between FADD and various cancers. Multiple databases were screened to identify cancer datasets for the present study and to validate the expression of FADD in various tumors. The association of FADD alteration with cancer prognosis, clinical features and tumor immunity was also evaluated. Reverse transcription-quantitative PCR (RT-qPCR) was utilized to confirm the expression of FADD in breast, colon, liver and gastric cancer cells. Analysis of Gene Expression Omnibus database and The Cancer Genome Atlas database indicated that FADD was highly expressed in breast invasive carcinoma (BRCA), cervical squamous cell carcinoma and endocervical adenocarcinoma, cholangiocarcinoma, colon adenocarcinoma (COAD), esophageal carcinoma (ESCA), kidney renal clear cell carcinoma, kidney renal papillary cell carcinoma, liver hepatocellular carcinoma (LIHC), lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD) and prostate adenocarcinoma, whereas RT-qPCR results revealed that FADD was highly expressed in breast cancer and colon cancer. Further analyses demonstrated that FADD expression was significantly altered in ESCA, head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSC), lung squamous cell carcinoma and BRCA. FADD expression was observed to be a risk factor of the overall survival in patients with HNSC, LIHC and LUAD as demonstrated by Kaplan-Meier and Cox regression analyses. The results of the present study demonstrated that FADD is highly expressed in numerous malignancies and can be utilized as a biomarker for the diagnosis of BRCA, COAD, LIHC and stomach adenocarcinoma. Moreover, FADD expression is a predictive risk factor for the development of HNSC, LIHC and LUAD and can potentially be used as a prognostic marker for these cancers.
Keywords: biomarker; diagnosis; fas-associated death domain; pan cancer.
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