Prognostic and immunological role of Fam20C in pan-cancer.

BACKGROUND The family with sequence similarity 20-member C (Fam20C) kinase plays important roles in physiopathological process and is responsible for majority of the secreted phosphoproteome, including substrates are associated with tumor cell migration. However, it remains unclear whether Fam20C plays a role in cancers. Here, we aimed to analyze the expression and prognostic value of Fam20C in pan-cancer and to gain insights into the association between Fam20C and immune infiltration. METHODS We analyzed Fam20C expression patterns and the associations between Fam20C expression levels and prognosis in pan-cancer via the ONCOMINE, TIMER, PrognoScan, GEPIA, and Kaplan-Meier Plotter databases. After that, GEPIA and TIMER databases were applied to investigate the relations between Fam20C expression and immune infiltration across different cancer types, especially bladder carcinoma (BLCA), brain lower grade glioma (LGG) and stomach adenocarcinoma (STAD). RESULTS Compared with adjacent normal tissues, Fam20C was widely expressed across many cancers. In general, Fam20C showed a detrimental role in pan-cancer, it was positively associated with poor survival of BLCA, LGG and STAD patients. Specifically, based on the TCGA database, a high expression level of Fam20C was associated with worse prognostic value in stage T2 to T4 and stage N0 to N2 in the cohort of STAD patients. Moreover, Fam20C expression had positive associations with immune infiltration, including CD4+ T cells, macrophages, neutrophils, and dendritic cells, and other diverse immune cells in BLCA, LGG and STAD. CONCLUSION Fam20C may serve as a promising prognostic biomarker in pan-cancer and has positive associations with immune infiltrates.