Integrative analysis reveals methylenetetrahydrofolate dehydrogenase 1-like as an independent shared diagnostic and prognostic biomarker in five different human cancers

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Defects in methylenetetrahydrofolate dehydrogenase 1-like (MTHFD1L) expression have earlier been examined in only a few human cancers. OBJECTIVES: Multi-omics profiling of MTHFD1L as a shared biomarker in distinct subtypes of human cancers. METHODS: In the current study, for the multi-omics analysis of MTHFD1L in 24 major subtypes of human cancers, a comprehensive in silico approach was adopted to mine different open access online databases including UALCAN, Kaplan-Meier (KM) plotter, LOGpc, GEPIA, Human Protein Atlas (HPA), Gene Expression across Normal and Tumor tissue (GENT2), MEXPRESS, cBioportal, STRING, DAVID, TIMER, and Comparative Toxicogenomics Database (CTD). RESULTS: We noticed that the expression of MTHFD1L was significantly higher in all the analyzed 24 subtypes of human cancers as compared with the normal controls. Moreover, MTHDF1L overexpression was also found to be significantly associated with the reduced overall survival (OS) duration of Bladder urothelial cancer (BLCA), Head and neck cancer (HNSC), Kidney renal papillary cell carcinoma (KIRP), Lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD), and Uterine corpus endometrial carcinoma (UCEC). This implies that MTHFD1L plays a significant role in the development and progression of these cancers. We further noticed that MTHFD1L was also overexpressed in BLCA, HNSC, KIRP, LUAD, and UCEC patients of different clinicopathological features. Pathways enrichment analysis revealed the involvement of MTHFD1L-associated genes in five diverse pathways. We also explored few interesting correlations between MTHFD1L expression and its promoter methylation, genetic alterations, CNVs, and between CD8+ T immune cells level. CONCLUSION: In conclusion, our results elucidated that MTHFD1L can serve as a shared diagnostic and prognostic biomarker in BLCA, HNSC, KIRP, LUAD, and UCEC patients of different clinicopathological features.