Systematic Analysis of the Oncogenic Role of WDR62 in Human Tumors

BACKGROUND: Emerging studies support the oncogenic role of WD repeat domain 62 (WDR62) in few tumors, while no pan-cancer analysis is available. In this study, we analyzed systematically the oncogenic role of WDR62 across a series of human tumors based on bioinformatic data mining. METHODS: The expression level of WDR62 was analyzed via GEPIA2, TIMER, UALCAN, and StarBase databases. The prognostic role was analyzed via GEPIA2, TIMER, UALCAN, StarBase, TISIDB, TCGA portal, Kaplan-Meier Plotter, and PrognoScan databases. Then, we explored the causes for WDR62 abnormal expression via TCGA portal and UALCAN databases. Subsequently, the STRING and GeneMANIA databases were used to find the interactive networks for WDR62. Furthermore, we analyzed the correlation between WDR62 expression and immune features via TIMER and TISIDB databases. RESULTS: We found that WDR62 was significantly upregulated in most of the tumors and correlated with poor prognosis mainly in 6 candidate tumors—BLCA, BRCA, KIRC, KIRP, LIHC, and LUAD. Abnormal WDR62 expression may be probably attributed to TP53 mutation and promoter DNA methylation. Relative network analysis demonstrated that WDR62 was mainly involved in MAPK and toll-like receptor signaling pathway. WDR62 expression was associated with various immune cell infiltrations, especially cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAF) and T cell regulatory (Treg) cells, and was markedly correlated with poor prognosis. Moreover, WDR62 expression was closely associated with the expression of some immunomodulators such as PD-L1 and has a significant prognostic value. CONCLUSIONS: Our study revealed that WDR62 could serve as a diagnostic and prognostic biomarker for several cancers. Importantly, WDR62 was closely associated with various immune cell infiltration, and to a certain extent, it can predict the effect of immunotherapy in particular PD1/PD-L1 inhibitors. Our pan-cancer study provided useful information on the oncogenic role of WDR62, contributing to further exploring the underlying mechanisms.