Investigating the role of Kinesin family in lung adenocarcinoma via integrated bioinformatics approach

Lung cancer is the leading cause of mortality from cancer worldwide. Lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD) is a type of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) with highest prevalence. Kinesins a class of motor proteins are shown to be involved in carcinogenesis. We conducted expression, stage plot and survival analyses on kinesin superfamily (KIF) and scrutinized the key prognostic kinesins. Genomic alterations of these kinesins were studied thereafter via cBioPortal. A protein–protein interaction network (PPIN) of selected kinesins and 50 closest altering genes was constructed followed by gene ontology (GO) term and pathway enrichment analyses. Multivariate survival analysis based on CpG methylation of selected kinesins was performed. Lastly, we conducted tumor immune infiltration analysis. Our results found KIF11/15/18B/20A/2C/4A/C1 to be significantly upregulated and correlated with poor survival in LUAD patients. These genes also showed to be highly associated with cell cycle. Out of our seven selected kinesins, KIFC1 showed the highest genomic alteration with highest number of CpG methylation. Also, CpG island (CGI) cg24827036 was discovered to be linked to LUAD prognosis. Therefore, we deduced that reducing the expression of KIFC1 could be a feasible treatment strategy and that it can be a wonderful individual prognostic biomarker. CGI cg24827036 can also be used as a therapy site in addition to being a great prognostic biomarker.