Identification of WWTR1 as an immune infiltration-correlated prognostic biomarker in colon cancer

Abstract WWTR1, a gene related to the TGF-β signaling pathway, has been elucidated to be involved in oncogenesis in multiple studies. There is, however, no research on its link to immune infiltration in colon cancer. The TCGA database has identified WWTR1, a gene related to the TGF-β signaling pathway, which is lowly expressed in colon cancer patients compared to normal subjects. Meanwhile, with GEO and the TCGA database, we produced the Kapan-Meier curve, which revealed that colon cancer patients with high WWTR1 expression had a poor prognosis. We discovered that high expression of WWTR1 in colon cancer was associated with clinical stage, pathological T-stage, and lymphatic metastasis after examining the clinical characteristics of colon cancer patients. WWTR1 was found to be an independent predictive factor for colon cancer in a multivariate Cox regression study. Infiltration of immunological cells (B cells, CD8 + T cells, CD4 + T cells, Macrophage, Neutrophil, Dendritic cells) was linked to WWTR1 expression. In colon cancer, WWTR1 expression was also found to be favorably linked with major immune cell markers. WWTR1 expression levels were associated to ameboidal-type cell migration, focal adhesion, actin binding, Chemical carcinogenesis - reactive oxygen species, Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, and Alzheimer disease, according to an analysis of WWTR1 differentially co-expressed genes (DCGs), GO, and KEGG enrichment analysis. These findings imply that WWTR1 is a prognostically valuable and important biomarker for colon cancer, and that its expression is strongly linked to colon cancer immune infiltration, making it a potential new target for colon cancer biotherapy.