TEDC2 correlated with prognosis and immune microenvironment in lung adenocarcinoma

Tubulin epsilon and delta complex 2 (TEDC2) is a protein coding gene whose functions are poorly identified yet. This study aimed to identify the role of TEDC2 in prognosis and immune microenvironment of lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD). Through The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) databases, the mRNA expression of TEDC2 was upregulated in LUAD tissues compared to normal tissues. The protein level of TEDC2 was also higher in LUAD in the Human Protein Atlas. The receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve showed that high TEDC2 level could distinguish LUAD patients from normal subjects. In addition, the impact of TEDC2 expression on prognosis was evaluated by Kaplan–Meier and Cox regression analyses, and the results suggested that high TEDC2 expression was significantly associated with poor prognosis and was the independent prognostic factor in LUAD. GO and KEGG pathway analyses indicated the co-expressed genes of TEDC2 were mainly related to mitotic cell cycle processes. Importantly, high expression of TEDC2 indicated low infiltration of immune cells, especially dendritic cells and B cells. TEDC2 was also positively correlated with immune checkpoints such as PDCD1, LAG3 and CD276. Taken together, this study preliminarily revealed the clinical significance of TEDC2 in LUAD and provided novel insights into the role of TEDC2 in immune microenvironment.