Molecular Expression and Prognostic Implications of Krüppel-Like Factor 3 (KLF3) in Clear Cell Renal Cell Carcinoma

A major subtype of renal cancer is clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC). Krüppel-like factor 3 (KLF3) dysfunction is also revealed leading to poor prognosis in multiple cancer types. However, dysregulation and molecular dynamics of KLF3 underlying ccRCC progression still remains elusive. Here KLF3 gene and protein expressions in ccRCC were explored using data cohorts from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA), Human Protein Atlas (HPA), Clinical Proteomic Tumor Analysis Consortium (CPTAC) and verified them in our patient cohort. Correlations of KLF3 expression with clinicopathological features, epigenetic modification, and immune microenvironment characteristics were further investigated. KLF3 was significantly down-regulated expressed in ccRCC tissues compared to adjacent normal controls. Adverse pathological parameters and poor prognosis were associated with lower expression of KLF3. Mechanically, KLF3 regulation was mainly attributed to CpG island methylation. KLF3-high expression subgroup was significantly enriched in cell signaling pathways most associated with EMT markers, angiogenesis, inflammatory response, apoptosis, TGF-β, degradation of ECM, G2M checkpoint, and PI3K-AKT-mTOR. Based on GDSC database, KLF3 upregulation was identified to be associated with higher sensitivities towards PI3K-Akt-mTOR pathway inhibitors such as PI-103, PIK-93, and OSI-027. In addition, patients with down-regulated KLF3 expressions were found more sensitive towards Trametinib, Cetuximab, and Erlotinib. Collectively, our findings suggest that KLF3 may act as a suitable biomarker for prognosis prediction, tumor microenvironment (TME) phenotype identification, thereby helping ccRCC patients to make better therapeutic decisions.