The expression landscape of JAK1 and its potential as a biomarker for prognosis and immune infiltrates in NSCLC

BACKGROUND: Janus-activated kinase-1 (JAK1) plays a crucial role in many aspects of cell proliferation, differentiation, apoptosis and immune regulation. However, correlations of JAK1 with prognosis and immune infiltration in NSCLC have not been documented. METHODS: We analyzed the relationship between JAK1 expression and NSCLC prognosis and immune infiltration using multiple public databases. RESULTS: JAK1 expression was significantly decreased in NSCLC compared with that in paired normal tissues. JAK1 overexpression indicated a favourable prognosis in NSCLC. In subgroup analysis, high JAK1 expression was associated with a preferable prognosis in lung adenocarcinoma (OS: HR, 0.74, 95% CI from 0.58 to 0.95, log-rank P = 0.017), not squamous cell carcinoma. In addition, data from Kaplan–Meier plotter revealed that JAK1 overexpression was associated with a preferable prognosis in male and stage N2 patients and patients without distant metastasis. Notably, increased levels of JAK1 expression were associated with an undesirable prognosis in patients with stage 1 (OS: HR, 1.46, 95% CI from 1.06 to 2.00, P = 0.02) and without lymph node metastasis (PFS: HR, 2.18, 95% CI from 1.06 to 4.46, P = 0.029), which suggests that early-stage NSCLC patients with JAK1 overexpression may have a bleak prognosis. Moreover, multiple immune infiltration cells, including NK cells, CD8 + T and CD4 + T cells, B cells, macrophages, neutrophils, and dendritic cells (DCs), in NSCLC were positively correlated with JAK1 expression. Furthermore, diverse immune markers are associated with JAK1 expression. CONCLUSIONS: JAK1 overexpression exhibited superior prognosis and immune infiltration in NSCLC. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12859-021-04379-y.