The copper-associated protein STEAP2 correlated with glioma prognosis and immune infiltration

Xu Wang; Mingzhi Han; Songyu Chen; Yanfei Sun; Ruirong Tan; Bin Huang

doi:10.3389/fncel.2022.944682

The copper-associated protein STEAP2 correlated with glioma prognosis and immune infiltration

Front Cell Neurosci. 2022 Aug 18:16:944682. doi: 10.3389/fncel.2022.944682. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Xu Wang^{1

2}, Mingzhi Han^{1

2

3}, Songyu Chen⁴, Yanfei Sun^{1

2}, Ruirong Tan⁵, Bin Huang^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Neurosurgery, Qilu Hospital, Cheeloo College of Medicine and Institute of Brain and Brain-Inspired Science, Shandong University, Jinan, China.
² Jinan Microecological Biomedicine Shandong Laboratory and Shandong Key Laboratory of Brain Function Remodeling, Jinan, China.
³ Medical Integration and Practice Center, Cheeloo College of Medicine, Shandong University, Jinan, China.
⁴ Department of Neurosurgery, Shanghai Tenth People's Hospital, Tongji University School of Medicine, Shanghai, China.
⁵ Translational Chinese Medicine Key Laboratory of Sichuan Province, Sichuan Institute for Translational Chinese Medicine, Sichuan Academy of Chinese Medicine Sciences, Chengdu, China.

Abstract

High-grade glioma is characterized by cell heterogeneity, gene mutations, and poor prognosis. Abnormal copper homeostasis affects the pathogenesis of glioma, but the underlying mechanisms and involved proteins are unknown. Here, we selected 90 copper-related proteins and verified their expression differences in glioma and normal tissues in the TCGA cohort followed by GO and KEGG clustering analyses. We then developed and validated a prognostic model. Moreover, we examined the mutation burden of copper-related proteins and discussed the differences in the immune microenvironment in the high- and low-risk groups. Furthermore, we focused on STEAP2 and demonstrated that STEAP2 expression was relatively low in tumor tissues compared to normal tissues, implying a favorable prognosis. Our findings provide a foundation for future research targeting copper-related proteins and their immune microenvironment to improve prognosis and responses to immunotherapy.

Keywords: STEAP2; copper associated protein; glioma; immune infiltration; tumor mutation burden (TMB).