Bioinformatics analysis of the expression and clinical significance of ITGA2 gene in pancreatic adenocarcinoma

Abstract:

Objective: To study the expression of ITGA2 (integrin alpha-2) in pancreatic adenocarcinoma, the relationship between expression and prognosis, the relationship between expression and clinicopathological characteristics, and to further predict the biological function of ITGA2. Methods: The GEPIA online tool was used to analyze the expression difference of ITGA2 gene in pancreatic adenocarcinoma tissues and normal tissues in The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database, and the relationship between the expression level and survival prognosis was analyzed retrospectively. The LinkedOmics database was used to screen the list of co-expressed genes of ITGA2 in pancreatic adenocarcinoma, and the biological functions were analyzed in the WebGestalt database. The clinical information and ITGA2 expression data of pancreatic adenocarcinoma patients was downloaded, the relationship between ITGA2 expression and clinicopathological characteristics was analyzed, and the risk factors that would affect survival and prognosis of pancreatic adenocarcinoma was studied. Results: ITGA2 was significantly highly expressed in pancreatic adenocarcinoma tissues (P<0.05). Compared with patients with low expression, the overall survival of pancreatic adenocarcinoma patients with high ITGA2 expression (log-rank P=0.002) and disease-free survival (log-rank P=0.004) significantly reduced. Using LinkedOmics, 278 genes co-expressed with ITGA2 were identified. Gene Ontology (GO) analysis showed that these genes were mainly involved in biological processes such as cell adhesion, intercellular junction composition, and cytoskeleton formation; Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) analysis showed significant enrichment in focal adhesions, adhesion junctions, tight junctions, regulation of actin cytoskeleton, tumor proteoglycans and other pathways. The expression level of ITGA2 was significantly correlated with tumor stage (χ²=6.380, P=0.036) , tumor size or invasion range (χ²=5.214, P=0.022) , and degree of tumor differentiation (χ²=11.998, P=0.002). Cox regression analysis showed that the expression level of ITGA2 was an independent risk factor affecting the prognosis of patients with pancreatic cancer (HR=1.888, 95%CI=1.021-3.490, P=0.043). Conclusion: ITGA2 gene is closely related to the occurrence and development of pancreatic adenocarcinoma, which can be used as a clinical marker to determine the prognosis of pancreatic adenocarcinoma and has the potential to become a tumor treatment target.