Pan-cancer analysis of positive regulatory domain-containing 16 in human tumors

Background: Positive regulatory domain-containing 16 (PRDM16) plays a key role in brown adipose transcription, but its function in cancer is unclear. Our research to investigate the potential roles of PRDM16 across multiple types of cancer by pan cancer analyses. Methods: UALCAN and TIMER2 database were utilized to evaluate PRDM16 expression in cancer patients. Gene Expression Profiling Interactive Analysis was employed to analyze the overall survival and disease-free survival across all The Cancer Genome Atlas Program tumors. Using the cBioPortal tool, we analyzed the mutation features of PRDM16 for the The Cancer Genome Atlas Program tumors, then utilized the Encyclopedia of RNA Interactomes database to predict the miRNA-mRNA relationships associated with the PRDM16 for all tumors. Results: The expression level of PRDM16 in the tumor tissues is lower than that in the normal tissues. Interesting, the high expression of PRDM16 has a positive effect on the prognosis of kidney clear cell carcinoma and lung adenocarcinoma, but not conducive to the prognosis of most cancers. In multiple cancer types, the expression of PRDM16 was significantly positively correlated with immune infiltration of cancer-associated fibroblasts. Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes and Gene Ontology analysis indicated that PRDM16 may be related to transcriptional misregulation pathway in cancer. We identified potential miRNAs that play regulatory roles of PRDM16 in kidney clear cell carcinoma and lung adenocarcinoma. Conclusion: PRDM16 is expressed in different cancers, it can be used as a biomarker for prognosis of pan-cancer and is associated with immune infiltration.