A pan-cancer study of selenoprotein genes as promising targets for cancer therapy

BACKGROUND: The most important health benefit of selenium (Se) is in the prevention and control of cancer. Glutathione peroxidases (GPXs) and thioredoxin reductases (TXNRDs) are selenoenzymes that are thought to play a role in oxidative stress. The differential expression of genes of the TXNRD and GPX families is closely related to carcinogenesis and the occurrence of cancer. This study comprehensively analyzed the expression profiles of seven genes in the TXNRD and GPX families, in terms of their correlations with patient survival and immune-cell subtypes, tumor microenvironment, and drug sensitivity. RESULTS: The expression profiles of genes in the TXNRD and GPX families differ between different types of cancer, and also between and within individual cancer cases. The expression levels of the seven analyzed genes are related to the overall survival of patients. The TXNRD1 and TXNRD3 genes are mainly related to poor prognoses, while other genes are related to good or poor prognoses depending on the type of cancer. All of the genes were found to be correlated to varying degrees with immune-cell subtypes, level of mechanistic cell infiltration, and tumor cell stemness. The TXNRD1, GPX1, and GPX2 genes may exert dual effects in tumor mutagenesis and development, while the TXNRD1, GPX1, GPX2, and GPX3 genes were found to be related to drug sensitivity or the formation of drug resistance. CONCLUSIONS: The results will greatly help in identifying the association between genes and tumorigenesis, especially in the immune response, tumor microenvironment, and drug resistance, and very important when attempting to identify new therapeutic targets. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12920-021-00930-1.