High expression of ZFP36L2 correlates with the prognosis and immune infiltration in lower-grade glioma

Background: The ZFP36 Ring Finger Protein Like 2 (ZFP36L2) is an RNA-binding protein that regulates gene expression at post-transcriptional level. However, the clinical significance and prognostic value of ZFP36L2 in lower-grade glioma (LGG) remain unclear. Method: ZFP36L2 expression was investigated using public datasets and the prognostic merit of ZFP36L2 with LGG patients was further evaluated. The correlation between the genetic alteration of ZFP36L2 and its mRNA expression was accessed via cBioPortal. Additionally, the prognostic value of the ZFP36L2 methylation levels in LGG was evaluated by MethSurv. The potential biological role of ZFP36L2 in LGG was identified by performing functional analyses. We also examined the correlation between ZFP36L2 expression and the immune infiltration. Finally, the predictive value of ZFP36L2 to immunotherapy was assessed. Result: ZFP36L2 was highly expressed in LGG patients and overexpressed ZFP36L2 predicted poor clinical outcomes. We further identified ZFP36L2 as an independent prognostic factor. The methylation level of ZFP36L2 negatively correlated with the ZFP36L2 expression, and patients with low ZFP36L2 methylation had worse overall survival. The results of functional analysis indicated that ZFP36L2 was involved in multiple immune response-related pathways in LGG. Furthermore, high expression of ZFP36L2 was significantly and positively correlated with immune infiltration. Finally, we found that ZFP36L2 expression was positively correlated with the immune checkpoint PD-L1, and ZFP36L2 low expression cohort gained better benefit from immunotherapy. Conclusion: Our findings demonstrate that ZFP36L2 is a potential biomarker for LGG, highlighting its potential as a therapeutic target in immunotherapy.