Prognostic significance of IL11RA and its methylation in lung adenocarcinoma

Interleukin-11 receptor alpha (IL11RA) involves in numerous biological processes of malignant tumor. Nevertheless, the precise role of IL11RA in lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD) remains unknown. This research aimed to elucidate the differential expression, methylation, prognosis significance and immune infiltration of IL11RA in LUAD.

Using the University of Alabama at Birmingham Cancer Data Analysis Portal (UALCAN), The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA), Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO), ONCOMINE, Gene Expression Profiling Interactive Analysis (GEPIA), and Human Protein Atlas (HPA) databases, the varied expression of IL11RA in LUAD was confirmed. The level of IL11RA methylation was investigated by UALCAN database. Spearman method was utilized to analyze the relevance between IL11RA expression and its methylation. The prognostic significance of IL11RA methylation was assessed using the Kaplan-Meier method. Furthermore, a meta-analysis based on TCGA and GEO databases was executed to judge the prognostic significance of IL11RA in LUAD. Immune infiltration was evaluated by Gene set enrichment analysis (GSEA) analysis, single-sample gene set enrichment analysis (ssGSEA) analysis and Tumor Immune Estimation Resource (TIMER) database.

Our research demonstrated that IL11RA expression was markedly diminished in LUAD. The low expression of IL11RA was tightly linked with stage, T stage, N stage and cancer status. IL11RA gene was inversely regulated by hypermethylation, resulting in its low expression in LUAD. The hypermethylation of IL11RA implied poor prognosis in LUAD. Moreover, a meta-analysis of 2,964 LUAD patients from 23 studies demonstrated that low IL11RA expression was positively associated with dismal overall survival (OS). Subsequently, we demonstrated that low expression of IL11RA was closely linked to diverse immune cells, especially B cells.

Our work demonstrates that IL11RA might be an underlying prognostic biomarker and an innovative molecular therapeutic target for individuals with LUAD.