High Expression of GMNN Predicts Malignant Progression and Poor Prognostic in ACC

Abstract

Background Adrenocortical carcinoma (ACC) is a rare endocrine neoplasm, which is characterized by poor prognosis and high recurrence rate. Novel and reliable prognostic and metastatic biomarkers are lacking for ACC patients. This study aims at screening potential prognostic biomarkers and therapeutic targets of ACC through bioinformatic methods and immunohistochemical (IHC) analysis. Methods In the present study, by using the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) database we identified differentially expressed genes (DEGs) in ACC and validated these DEGs in The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) ACC cohort. A DEGs-based signature was additionally constructed and we assessed its prognostic and prescient worth for ACC by survival analysis and nomogram. Immunohistochemistry (IHC) was used to verify the relationship between hub gene-GMNN expressions and clinicopathologic outcomes in ACC patients. Results A total of 24 DEGs correlated with the prognosis of ACC were screened from the TCGA and GEO databases. Five DEGs were subsequently selected in a signature which was closely related to the survival rates of ACC patients. Among these genes, GMNN was identified as a hub gene and was independently associated with the survival of ACC. Meanwhile, in our cohort we also found that GMNN was significantly overexpressed in tumor tissues and was closely related to the pathological features and prognostic of ACC. Conclusions GMNN is a novel tumor marker for predicting the malignant progression, metastasis and prognosis of ACC, and may be a potential therapeutic target for ACC.