Pan-cancer Analyses Reveal Regulation and Clinical Outcome Association of the PCLAF in Human Tumors

Background: PCLAF, also known as KIAA0101, is overexpressed among some human malignancies and performs distinct biological functions. However, the specific mechanism of PCLAF in cancer remains unclear. Therefore, this study aims to analyze the role of PCLAF in human tumors.Methods: First, we used TCGA (Cancer Genome Atlas) and GEO (Gene expression Synthesis) data sets to evaluate the expression level of PCLAF in 33 tumors. Secondly, we used GEPIA2 and Kaplan-Meier plotter for survival prognosis analysis. In addition, we use cBioPortal web to analyze the genetic changes of PCLAF and perform immune infiltration analysis. At the same time, we also conducted enrichment analysis of PCLAF-related genes. Finally, we selected the hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) cell line to verify the function of PCALF.Results: PCLAF is highly expressed in most cancers, and there is a significant correlation between the expression of PCLAF and the prognosis of tumor patients. The expression of PCLAF is positively correlated with Act CD4 (Activated CD4 T cells) and Th2 (Type 2 T helper cells), suggesting that PCLAF may play a particular role in tumor immune infiltration. In addition, the functional mechanism of PCLAF also involves the mitotic cell cycle process, cell division, DNA replication. Conclusions: Our first pan-cancer study provides a relatively comprehensive understanding of the carcinogenic effects of PCLAF in different tumors, which provides a solid foundation for studying the role of PCLAF in tumorigenesis and development.