Upregulation of TIMM8A is correlated with prognosis and immune regulation in BC

Abstract

Backgrounds: Breast cancer is a common malignant tumors in women. TIMM8A was up-regulated in different cancers. The aim of this work was to clarify the value of TIMM8A in the diagnosis, prognosis of Breast Cancer (BC), and its association with immune cells and immune detection points. Gene mutations. Methods: The transcription and expression profile of TIMM8A between BC and normal tissues was downloaded from The Cancer Genome atlas (TCGA). The expression of TIMM8A protein was evaluated by human protein map. The correlation between TIMM8A and clinical features was analyzed using the R package to establish a ROC diagnostic curve. cBioPortal and MethSurv were used to identify gene alterations and DNA methylation and their effects on prognosis. The tumor immune estimation resource (TIMER) database and tumor immune system interaction database (TISIDB) database were used to determine the relationship between TIMM8A gene expression levels and immune infiltration. The CTD database was used to predict related drugs that inhibit TIMM8A, and the PubChem database was used to determine the molecular structure of potentially effective drug small molecules. Results: The expression of TIMM8A in breast cancer tissues was significantly higher than that in normally adjacent tissues to cancer. ROC curve analysis showed that the AUC value of TIMM8A was 0.679. Kaplan-Meier method showed that patients with high TIMM8A had a lower prognosis (Overall Survival HR = 1.83 (1.31 − 2.54), P < 0.001) than patients with low TIMM8A expression of breast cancer (148.5 months vs. 115.4 months, P < 0.001). Methylation levels at seven CpG were associated with prognosis. Correlation analysis showed that TIMM8A expression was associated with tumor immune cell infiltration. There was a significant positive correlation of TIMM8A with PDL-1, and CTLA-4 in BC. In addition, CTD database analysis identified 15 small molecular drugs that target TIMM8A, such as Cyclosporine, Leflunomide, and Tretinoin, which might be effective therapies for targeted inhibition of TIMM8A. Conclusion: In breast cancer, up-regulated TIMM 8A was significantly related to lower survival rate and higher immune invasiveness. Our research showed that TIMM 8A could be used as a biomarker for poor prognosis of breast cancer and a potential target of immunotherapy.