Identification of key proteins in the signaling crossroads between wound healing and cancer hallmark phenotypes

Abstract

Wound healing (WH) and cancer seem to share common cellular and molecular processes that could work in a tight balance to maintain tissue homeostasis or, when unregulated, drive tumor progression. The “Cancer Hallmarks” comprise crucial biological properties that mediate the advancement of the disease and affect patient prognosis. These hallmarks have been proposed to overlap with essential features of the WH process. However, common hallmarks and proteins actively participating in both processes have yet to be described. In this work we identify 21 WH proteins strongly linked with solid tumors by integrated TCGA Pan-Cancer and multi-omics analyses. These proteins were associated with eight of the ten described cancer hallmarks, especially avoiding immune destruction. These results show that WH and cancer's common proteins are involved in the microenvironment modification of solid tissues and immune system regulation. This set of proteins, between WH and cancer, could represent key targets for developing therapies.