A Pan-Cancer Analysis of the KIF Family Gene and their Association with Prognosis, Tumor Microenvironment, and Therapeutic Targets

Abstract Background: Recently, studies have shown that kinesins(KIF) play an important role in the occurrence and development of many tumors. However, there is no complete understanding of the role of KIF family in Pan cancer, and its role in the immunity and tumor microenvironment (TME) is unclear.Methods: Based on TCGA database and integrated several R packages, we explored the relationship between the expression of KIF genes and patient survival, immune subtypes, TME, tumor stem cell correlation, and drug sensitivity in cancer.Results: We use nine highly expressed KIF genes(KIF2C, KIF4A, KIF7, KIF11, KIF14, KIF18A, KIF18B, KIF20A, KIF20B) to represent whole KIF family. The change in KIF gene expression was significantly related to overall survival. The nine KIFs' high expression is accompanied by the up-regulation of C1 immune subtype, which is related to cell proliferation and interruption of immune process. Further, KIF gene expression showed significant correlation and cancer cell stemness characteristics. Top25 relevant KIF-drug pairs were displayed according to their P values. We further discussed KIF family influence in Mesothelioma(MESO) and Sarcoma(SARC). The CIBERSORT results manifested that increased level of infiltration of B cells naive, Mast cells resting and NK cells activated could be used as a protective factor to promote survival.Conclusions: Our study supplemented a complete map of the effect of KIF family in Pan cancer. We suggested that KIF family may be a potential target for cancer therapy.