The expression landscape of PTPN2 in pan-cancer TCGA data
Integrated analysis was performed on tumor patients in The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) datasets, a comprehensive database containing 11,000 patients samples. The expression profiling of PTPN2 was visualized by the TIMER platform based on pan-cancer TCGA data, including 31 different tumor types. Among 31 types of cancer, the result showed that PTPN2 was expressed in all kinds of cancer, but the expression levels were different. The highest expression was Thymoma (THYM), and the lowest was Liver hepatocellular carcinoma (LIHC). The expression level of other types of cancer is between these two types of cancer. Compared to normal tissue, PTPN2 was over-expressed in KIRC, LIHC, Lung squamous cell carcinoma (LUSC), Stomach adenocarcinoma (STAD), Head and Neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSC), Esophageal carcinoma (ESCA), Bladder Urothelial Carcinoma (BLCA), and Cholangiocarcinoma (CHOL) based on TIMER pan-cancer analysis (Fig. 1A).
To further assess the prognostic role of PTPN2 in different cancers, we explored the relationship between mRNA expression of PTPN2 and patient survival using R. The relationship between PTPN2 and prognosis among different cancer types was summarized in Fig. 1B. Among the 32 cancers examined, the high PTPN2 mRNA expression was found to be significantly correlated with decreased probability of survival for Adrenocortical carcinoma (ACC) (HR = 3.527; P = 0.001), Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) (HR = 1.820; P = 0.003), KIRC (HR = 2.331; P < 0.001), Brain Lower Grade Glioma (LGG) (HR = 2.559; P < 0.001), Pancreatic adenocarcinoma (PAAD) (HR = 1.738; P = 0.010), Pheochromocytoma and Paraganglioma (PCPG) (HR = 9.665; P = 0.007), Prostate adenocarcinoma (PRAD) (HR = 10.477; P = 0.025), Uterine Corpus Endometrial Carcinoma (UCEC) (HR = 1.804; P = 0.007), and Uveal Melanoma (UVM) (HR = 3.776; P = 0.004). And high expression of PTPN2 correlated with better survival in patients with several types of cancer, including BLCA, Breast invasive carcinoma (BRCA), Ovarian serous cystadenocarcinoma (OV), Skin Cutaneous Melanoma (SKCM), and THYM.
The Prognostic Role Of Ptpn2 In Kirc
When we further investigate the potential clinical role of PTPN2 in KIRC patients, the results showed PTPN2 was closely related to the T stage (P = 0.008 ), TNM stage (P = 0.017 ), and Grade (P = 0.002 ) (Table 1). Overexpression of PTPN2 predicted poor survival in KIRC based on the TCGA cohort, which was revealed by the Kaplan-Meier method (P < 0.001) (Fig. 2A). In the multiple Cox analysis, PTPN2, age, and Grade were independent risk factors for OS. The univariate and multivariate analyses are listed in Table 2. Furthermore, we established a nomogram to predict the probability of OS in KIRC patients (Fig. 2B). In this model, the Grade stage, TNM stage, age, and PTPN2 expressions have important effects on KIRC overall survival prediction.
Table 1
Demographics and clinicopathologic characteristic for KIRC patients in the TCGA cohort.
| Total | PTPN2 low expression | PTPN2 high expression | P-value |
Age | 60.56 ± 12.14 | 60.59 ± 12.18 | 60.51 ± 12.10 | 0.939 |
Sex | | | | |
Female | 186 | 99 | 87 | 0.372 |
Male | 345 | 167 | 178 | |
T stage | | | | 0.008 |
T1 | 272 | 155 | 117 | |
T2 | 69 | 33 | 36 | |
T3 | 200 | 98 | 102 | |
T4 | 11 | 1 | 10 | |
TNM | | | | 0.017 |
Stage I | 266 | 152 | 114 | |
Stage II | 57 | 28 | 29 | |
Stage III | 123 | 53 | 70 | |
Stage IV | 82 | 32 | 50 | |
NA | 3 | 1 | 2 | |
Mstage | | | | 0.059 |
M0 | 420 | 222 | 198 | |
M1 | 78 | 31 | 47 | |
Mx | 31 | 13 | 18 | |
NA | 2 | 0 | 2 | |
Nstage | | | | |
N0 | 239 | 113 | 126 | 0.213 |
N1 | 16 | 5 | 11 | |
Nx | 276 | 148 | 128 | |
Grade | | | | 0.002 |
G1 | 14 | 9 | 5 | |
G2 | 227 | 116 | 111 | |
G3 | 207 | 114 | 93 | |
G4 | 75 | 23 | 52 | |
Gx | 5 | 1 | 4 | |
NA | 3 | 3 | 0 | |
Table 2
Univariate and multivariate analyses of prognostic factors for overall survival using Cox proportional hazards regression model (N = 531)
Characteristics | Univariate analysis | | Multivariate analysis |
HR | 95%CI | P-value | | HR | 95%CI | P-value |
Age | 1.029 | 1.016–1.042 | < 0.001 | | 1.027 | 1.009–1.046 | 0.003 |
T stage | 1.892 | 1.606–2.230 | < 0.001 | | 0.872 | 0.540–1.407 | 0.574 |
N stage | 3.15 | 1.626–6.101 | 0.001 | | 1.427 | 0.698–2.196 | 0.33 |
M stage | 4.256 | 3.108–5.830 | < 0.001 | | 1.521 | 0.676–3.419 | 0.311 |
TNM stage | 1.857 | 1.625–2.123 | < 0.001 | | 1.584 | 0.944–2.659 | 0.081 |
Grade | 2.244 | 1.828–2.754 | < 0.001 | | 1.48 | 1.067–2.053 | 0.019 |
PTPN2 | 2.389 | 1.659–3.439 | < 0.001 | | 1.947 | 1.431–2.649 | < 0.001 |
Ptpn2 And Tiics
The Tumor Immunological Estimation Resource (TIMER) platform (https://cistrome.
shiny apps.io/timer/) was explored the correlation between tumor immune-infiltrating cells (TIICs) and PTPN2, and the statistical results were based on Spearman correlation analysis. The correlation between PTPN2 and TIICs was very prominent. PTPN2 was related to all six types of TIICs (B cells, P = 1.19e-8; CD8 + T cells, P = 2.27e-10; CD4 + T cells, P = 2.21e-15; Macrophage, 1.19e-19; Neutrophils, P = 3.14e-33; Dendritic cells, P = 1.09e-18) (Fig. 3).
Gene Co-expression Net Analysis And Gsea Analysis
To further investigate the underlying mechanism of PTPN2 in KIRC, gene co-expression net analyses were performed by Metascape. These co-expression genes were significantly enriched in mitotic cell cycle phase transition, centrosome duplication; DNA-dependent DNA replication; DNA repair; regulation of T cell activation (Fig. 4A). GSEA was performed here to identify the biological gene sets or pathways for PTPN2. we found 560 immune-related terms, including GSE29615_CTRL_VS_DAY3_LAIV_IFLU_VACCINE_PBMC_UP; GSE1460_NAIVE_CD4_TCELL_CORD_BLOOD_VS_THYMIC_STROMAL_CELL_DN; GSE12839_CTRL_VS_IL12_TREATED_PBMC_UP; SE21546_UNSTIM_VS_ANTI_CD3_STIM_SAP1A_KO_DP_THYMOCYTES_UP; GSE16385_UNTREATED_VS_12H_ROSIGLITAZONE_IL4_TREATED_MACROPHAGE_DN et al. (Fig. 4B-E). For gene set enrichment analysis, a series of GO terms related to immune and inflammatory factors were also found, including CD4 T-cell differentiation-related factors, innate and adaptive responses to vaccination, regulating lipid metabolism and inflammatory response in macrophages and dendritic cells and systemic inflammatory regulation related factors.
Ptpn2 And Immune-related Genes
We acquired the immune-related genes from the ImmPort database. Then we identified the correlation between PTPN2 and these immune-related genes. The results showed that PTPN2 was related to many immune-related genes. To our greatest interest, CTLA-4 (P = 8.31E-39, r = 0.495) and PDCD1 (P = 1.22E-14, r = 0.306) were included in these related many immune-related genes. Furthermore, when the patients with KIRC were grouped into four strata by the level of PTPN2 and CTLA-4, the survival rate in patients with high PTPN2 and CTLA4 was significantly lower than that other three strata (Fig. 5).