A pan-cancer study of the role of lysine specific demethylase 1 (LSD1) in human cancers

Abstract Objectives: To conduct a pan-cancer analysis of a relationship between LSD1 and cancer. Setting: Although increasing evidence from cell- or animal-based research supports the existence of a relationship between LSD1 and cancer, there is no pan-cancer analysis. Data sources: Databases, including TCGA, and GEO. Results: On the basis of the TCGA and GEO datasets, we first found that LSD1 may contribute to tumorigenesis across 34 tumor types. LSD1 is expressed in most cancers at a higher level than in normal tissues, and there are distinguishable differences between the LSD1 expression and prognosis of patients. We found that the phosphorylation level of S166 is highly expressed in several tumors, including breast cancer, uterine corpus endometrial carcinoma and lung adenocarcinoma. There was an association between the expression of LSD1 and the infiltration of cancer-associated fibroblasts in BRCA, CESC, ESCA, HNSC, KIRC, LUAD, LUSC, PAAD and PCPG. In addition, RNA transport, mRNA surveillance pathways, and spliceosome -associated functions are also involved in the molecular mechanisms of LSD1. Conclusions: This pan-cancer study provides a fairly comprehensive description of the oncogenic roles of LSD1 in a wide variety of tumors.