Evaluation of clinical value and potential mechanism of MTFR2 in lung adenocarcinoma via bioinformatics

BACKGROUND: Mitochondrial fission regulator 2 (MTFR2) was involved in the progression and development of various cancers. However, the relationship between MTFR2 with lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD) had not been reported. Herein, this study analyzed the clinical significance and potential mechanisms of MTFR2 in LUAD via bioinformatics tools. RESULTS: We found that the level of MTFR2 was increased, and correlated with sex, age, smoking history, neoplasm staging, histological subtype and TP53 mutation status in LUAD patients. Kaplan-Meier survival analysis showed LUAD patients with increased MTFR2 had a poor prognosis. In addition, univariate COX regression analysis showed neoplasm staging, T stage, distant metastasis and MTFR2 level were risk factors for the prognosis of LUAD. A total of 1127 genes were coexpressed with MTFR2, including 840 positive and 208 negative related genes. KEGG and GSEA found that MTFR2 participated in the progression of LUAD by affecting cell cycle, DNA replication, homologous recombination, p53 signaling pathway and other mechanisms. The top 10 coexpressed genes, namely CDK1, CDC20, CCNB1, PLK1, CCNA2, AURKB, CCNB2, BUB1B, MAD2L1 and BUB1 were highly expressed, and were associated with poor prognosis in LUAD. CONCLUSIONS: Consequently, we elucidated MTFR2 was a biomarker for diagnosis and poor prognosis in LUAD, and might participate in the progression of LUAD via affecting cell cycle, DNA replication, homologous recombination and p53 signaling pathway. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12885-021-08378-3.