Comprehensive Analysis of the Prognosis and Correlations With Immune Infiltration of S100 Protein Family Members in Hepatocellular Carcinoma

• Main Authors: Susu Zheng, Linxia Liu, Tongchun Xue, Chuyu Jing, Xin Xu, Yanfang Wu, Meixia Wang, Xiaoying Xie, Boheng Zhang
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Frontiers Media S.A. 2021-03-01
• Series: Frontiers in Genetics
• Subjects: S100 protein family; hepatocellular carcinoma; prognosis; immune infiltrates; mutations
• Online Access: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fgene.2021.648156/full

S100 protein family members (S100s) are commonly dysregulated in various tumors including hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). However, the diverse expression, mutation, prognosis and associations with immune infiltration of S100s in HCC have yet to be analyzed. Herein we investigated the roles of S100s in HCC from the Oncomine, Gene Expression Profiling Interactive Analysis (GEPIA), Human Protein Atlas, Kaplan-Meier Plotter, cBioPortal and TIMER databases. Compared with para-cancer tissues, the expression levels of S100A4/S100A6/S100A10/S100A11/S100A13/S100A14/S100P were higher in HCC tissues, while the expression levels of S100A8/S100A9/S100A12 were decreased in tumor tissues. The mRNA levels of S100A2/S100A7/S100A7A/S100A8/S100A9/S100A11 were correlated with advanced tumor stage. Besides, higher mRNA expressions of S100A6/S100A10/S100A11/S100A13/S100A14/S100P were shown to have shorter overall survival (OS), while higher expression of S100A12 was associated with favorable OS. Further, the mutation rate of S100s was investigated, and the high mutation rate (53%) was associated with shorter OS. Additionally, the expressions of S100s were found to be significantly associated with various immune infiltrating cells. Hence, our results showed that S100A6/S100A10/S100A11/S10012/S100A13/S100A14/S100P may be regarded as new prognostic or therapeutic markers and S100s inhibitors may be helpful in the combination of immunotherapies.