Mining topoisomerase isoforms in gastric cancer

DNA topoisomerases essentially remove topological strains generated during DNA replication, transcription, DNA repair, and other cytogenetic processes. However, distinct expression level and prognostic significance of individual topoisomerase isoforms in gastric cancer (GC) remain largely unexplored. In this study, we utilized Oncomine and Kaplan-Meier plotter database to detect the mRNA expression level of individual topoisomerase isoforms as well as assess their prognostic significance in GC patients. With the exception of TOP3B and TOP2B, levels of all topoisomerase isoforms were found to be elevated in GC patients when compared to the normal tissues. Elevated expression of TOP1 and TOP1MT was relevant to longer overall survival (OS) in GC and gastric intestinal type adenocarcinoma (GITA) patients, but not in diffuse gastric adenocarcinoma (DFA) patients. Increased expression of TOP2A and TOP2B was related to better OS in GC, as well as in GITA and DFA patients. In contrast, increased expression TOP3A and TOP3B was associated with shorter OS in GC, as well as in GITA and DFA patients. We also applied the Tumor IMmune Estimation Resource (TIMER) tool to assess the correlations between distinct topoisomerase isoforms and the infiltrating immune cell landscape. Furthermore, we found that down-regulating the expression of TOP3A by shRNA significantly inhibited the proliferation and colony formation in GC cells compared to control shRNA treated cells. Thus our study lays the framework for utilizing topoisomerases in better understanding the complexity and heterogeneity of GC and for developing strategies for novel customized therapy in GC patients.