LRG1 May Accelerate the Progression of ccRCC via the TGF-β Pathway

Clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC) accounts for 60-70% of renal cell carcinoma (RCC) cases. It is an urgent mission to find more therapeutic targets for advanced ccRCC. Leucine-rich a-2-glycoprotein 1 (LRG1) is a secreted protein associated with a variety of malignancies. Our study focused on the expression and mechanism of LRG1 in ccRCC based on data from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and provided primary verification including LRG1 expression detection, LRG1 gene methylation detection, and downstream signaling detection. We found that LRG1 was overexpressed in ccRCC kidney tissue samples, and the methylation level of LRG1 gene was significantly decreased in ccRCC. Moreover, the expression of LRG1 was negatively related to patient survival. Based on our previous study and the verification reported in this article, we propose that demethylation-induced overexpression of LRG1 is likely to accelerate ccRCC progression via the TGF-β pathway.