Prognostic and immunological role of Ras-related protein Rap1b in pan-cancer

ABSTRACT

Ras-related Protein Rap1b, a GTP-binding protein belonging to the proximal RAS, which affects tumor progression through regulating tumor cell proliferation, invasion and participates in the functions of various immune cells. However, the potential roles and mechanisms of Rap1b in tumor progression and immunology remains unclear. In this study, we systematically analyzed the pan-cancer expression and prognostic correlation of Rap1b based on GTEX, CCLE, Oncomine, PrognoScan, Kaplan–Meier plotters and TCGA databases. The potential correlations of Rap1b with immune infiltration were revealed via TIMER and TCGA database. SangerBox database was used to analyzed the correlations between Rap1b expression and immune checkpoint (ICP), tumor mutational burden (TMB), microsatellite instability (MSI), mismatch repairs (MMRs) and DNA methylation. The results indicated that the expression level of Rap1b varies in different tumors. Meanwhile, the expression level of Rap1b strongly correlated with prognosis in patients with tumors, higher expression of Rap1b usually was linked to poor prognosis in different datasets. Rap1b was correlated closely with tumor immunity and interacted with various immune cells in different types of cancers. In addition, there were significant positive correlations between Rap1b expression and ICP, TMB, MSI, MMRs and DNA methylation. In conclusion, the results of pan-cancer analysis showed that the abnormal Rap1b expression was related to poor prognosis and tumor immune infiltration in different cancers. Furthermore, Rap1b gene may be used as a potential biomarker of clinical tumor prognosis.

KEYWORDS:

• Rap1b
• pan-cancer
• survival analysis
• prognostic biomarker
• immune infiltration
• tumor microenvironment

Highlights

(1) The expression level of Rap1b varies in different tumors.

(2) The expression level of Rap1b strongly correlated with prognosis in patients with tumors, higher expression of Rap1b usually was linked to poor prognosis in different datasets.

(3) Rap1b was correlated closely with tumor immunity and interacted with various immune cells in different types of cancers.

(4) There were significant positive correlations between Rap1b expression and ICP, TMB, MSI, MMRs and DNA methylation

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Author contribution

Authors Guoliang Cui and Can Wang conceived and designed the study. Zhenyan Lin and Xiaoke Feng wrote the manuscript. Muxin Wei and Zhengyue Miao conducted data analysis and obtained the datasets. Fei Wei and Zhiguang Sun revised the manuscript. All authors reviewed and approved the final manuscript.

Data availability statement

We confirm that our article contains a Data Availability Statement. All the data in this study are available from TCGA database (https://portal.gdc.cancer.gov), TIMER database (https://cistrome.shinyapps.io/timer/), GTEx database (http://www.gtexportal/), CCLE database (https://portals.broadinstitute.org/ccle).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Project of Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine of Jiangsu Province of China (YB2015166)