Abstract
ObjectiveThis study conducted a comprehensive analysis of the members of the PTPN family and emphasized the key role of PTPN2 as a potential therapeutic target and diagnostic biomarker in improving the survival rate of PAAD.MethodOncomine was used to analyze the pan-cancer expression of the PTPN gene family. The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) data as well as Genotype-Tissue Expression (GTEx) data were downloaded to analyze the expression and prognosis of PTPNs. The diagnosis of PTPNs was evaluated by the experimental ROC curve. The protein-protein interaction (PPI) network was constructed by combining STRING and Cytoscape. The genes of 50 proteins most closely related to PTPN2 were screened and analyzed by GO and KEGG enrichment. The differentially expressed genes of PTPN2 were found by RNA sequencing, and GSEA enrichment analysis was carried out to find the downstream pathways and targets, which were verified by online tools and experiments. Finally, the relationship between PTPN2 and immune cell infiltration in PAAD, and the relationship with immune score and immune checkpoint were studied.ResultThe expression patterns and the prognostic value of multiple PTPNs in PAAD have been reported through bioinformatic analyzes. Among these members, PTPN2 is the most important prognostic signature that regulates the progression of PAAD by activating JAK-STAT signaling pathway. Comparison of two PAAD cell lines with normal pancreatic epithelial cell lines revealed that PTPN2 expression was up-regulated as a key regulator of PAAD, which was associated with poor prognosis. Knockdown of PTPN2 caused a profound decrease in PAAD cell growth, migration, invasion, and induced PAAD cell cycle and apoptosis. In addition, we conducted a series of enrichment analyses to investigate the PTPN2-binding proteins and the PTPN2 expression-correlated genes. We suggest that STAT1 and EGFR are the key factors to regulate PTPN2, which are involved in the progression of PAAD. Meanwhile, the silencing of PTPN2 induced the repression of STAT1 and EGFR expression.ConclusionThese findings provide a comprehensive analysis of the PTPN family members, and for PAAD, they also demonstrate that PTPN2 is a diagnostic biomarker and a therapeutic target.
Highlights
Phosphorylation is a post-translational modification process which is universal and reversible
In the Grutzmann dataset, compared to normal tissue, PTPN1 was overexpressed in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma epithelia (Table 1)
The results showed that elevated levels of PTPN1, PTPN2, and PTPN12 mRNA in PAAD patients were significantly associated with diseasespecific survival (DSS) (p < 0.05, Figure 5B)
Summary
Phosphorylation is a post-translational modification process which is universal and reversible. It plays critical roles in plenty of cellular regulations, such as cell growth, metabolism, and communication, and changes the activity of downstream targets in cell signaling pathways [10, 11]. The abnormal regulation of phosphorylation is related to the occurrence of many human diseases, including malignant tumor, neurodegeneration, inflammatory disease, and diabetes [12,13,14]. PTPNs are parts of the biggest family class I PTPs, which have been found to act on many important biological processes, including tumor metastasis, cell survival, apoptosis, migration, immune response [17,18,19].
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