Exploration of the carcinogenetic and immune role of CHK1 in human cancer.

Background: Previous study indicated that CHK1 was important for repairing DNA damage and cell cycle regulation. Aims: To investigate the association of Checkpoint kinase 1 (CHK1) expression with clinicopathological features, prognosis, and immune infiltration in cancer. Methods: Several databases were searched for relevant publications to conduct a meta-analysis to reveal the association between CHK1 and clinicopathological features of cancer. TIMER and GEPIA datasets were utilized to explore the differential expression of CHK1 of tumors. GEPIA and Kaplan-Meier Plotter databases were adopted to detect the prognostic significance of CHK1 in tumor. TIMER and cBioPortal databases were used for the analysis regarding immune infiltration and mutation respectively. Results: We found that CHK1 expression was significantly associated with low differentiation (OR=3.94, 95% CI: 2.73-5.67, P<0.05), advanced stage (OR=3.20, 95% CI: 2.30-4.44, P<0.05), vascular infiltration (OR=3.24, 95% CI: 2.18-4.82, P<0.05) and lymph node metastasis (OR=3.55, 95% CI: 2.62-4.82, P<0.05) of various cancers. CHK1 was highly expressed in multiple cancers and was related to clinical stage, survival, immune infiltration in pan-cancers. Conclusions: Our study found that CHK1 was significantly related to prognosis and immunological status in various cancers, suggesting that CHK1 may serve as a useful biomarker for prognosis and immune infiltration in cancer.