TRPV4 is a Prognostic Biomarker that Correlates with the Immunosuppressive Microenvironment and Chemoresistance of Anti-Cancer Drugs

Background: Transient receptor potential cation channel subfamily V member 4 (TRPV4) has been reported to regulate tumor progression in many tumor types. However, its association with the tumor immune microenvironment remains unclear. Methods: TRPV4 expression was assessed using data from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and the Genotype-Tissue Expression (GTEx) database. The clinical features and prognostic roles of TRPV4 were assessed using TCGA cohort. Gene set enrichment analysis (GSEA) of TRPV4 was conducted using the R package clusterProfiler. We analyzed the association between TRPV4 and immune cell infiltration scores of TCGA samples downloaded from published articles and the TIMER2 database. The IC50 values of 192 anti-cancer drugs were downloaded from the Genomics of Drug Sensitivity in Cancer (GDSC) database and the correlation analysis was performed. Results: TRPV4 was highly expressed and associated with worse overall survival (OS), disease-specific survival (DSS), disease-free interval (DFI), and progression-free interval (PFI) in colon adenocarcinoma (COAD) and ovarian cancer. Furthermore, TRPV4 expression was closely associated with immune regulation-related pathways. Moreover, tumor-associated macrophage (TAM) infiltration levels were positively correlated with TRPV4 expression in TCGA pan-cancer samples. Immunosuppressive genes such as PD-L1, PD-1, CTLA4, LAG3, TIGIT, TGFB1, and TGFBR1 were positively correlated with TRPV4 expression in most tumors. In addition, patients with high expression of TRPV4 might be resistant to the treatment of Cisplatin and Oxaliplatin. Conclusion: Our results suggest that TRPV4 is an oncogene and a prognostic marker in COAD and ovarian cancer. High TRPV4 expression is associated with tumor immunosuppressive status and may contribute to TAM infiltration based on TCGA data from pan-cancer samples. Patients with high expression of TRPV4 might be resistant to the treatment of Cisplatin and Oxaliplatin.