CGN Correlates With the Prognosis and Tumor Immune Microenvironment in Clear Cell Renal Cell Carcinoma

Zijian Tian; Lingfeng Meng; Xin Wang; Tongxiang Diao; Maolin Hu; Miao Wang; Yaqun Zhang; Ming Liu; Jianye Wang

doi:10.3389/fmolb.2022.758974

CGN Correlates With the Prognosis and Tumor Immune Microenvironment in Clear Cell Renal Cell Carcinoma

Front Mol Biosci. 2022 Feb 9:9:758974. doi: 10.3389/fmolb.2022.758974. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Zijian Tian^{1

2}, Lingfeng Meng^{1

2}, Xin Wang¹, Tongxiang Diao¹, Maolin Hu¹, Miao Wang¹, Yaqun Zhang¹, Ming Liu^{1

2}, Jianye Wang^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Urology, Beijing Hospital, National Center of Gerontology, Institute of Geriatric Medicine, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, Beijing, China.
² Graduate School of Peking Union Medical College, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, Beijing, China.

Abstract

This study aimed to screen and verify the important prognostic genes related to clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC) and further analyze their relationship with the immune microenvironment. Gene expression profiles from the TCGA-KIRC, GSE46699, GSE36895, and GSE16449 datasets were utilized to explore differentially co-expressed genes in ccRCC. We screened 124 differentially co-expressed genes using a weighted gene co-expression network and differential gene expression analyses. Univariate and multivariate Cox survival analyses revealed that the expressions of genes CGN, FECH, UCHL1, and WT1 were independently related to the overall survival of ccRCC patients. Kaplan-Meier survival analysis was performed, and CGN was found to have the strongest correlation with the prognosis of ccRCC patients and was consequently selected for further analyses and experimental verification. The results showed that NK cell activation, resting dendritic cells, resting monocytes, and resting mast cells were positively correlated with CGN expression; CD4⁺ memory activated T cells, regulatory T cells, and M0 macrophages were negatively correlated with CGN expression. Finally, using western blotting and reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction, we verified that the CGN protein level was down-regulated in ccRCC samples, which was consistent with the mRNA levels. CGN was thus identified as diagnosis and prognosis biomarker for ccRCC and is related to the immune microenvironment.

Keywords: CGN; clear cell renal carcinoma; prognosis; survival analysis; tumor immune microenvironment.