CPNE2 might serve as a new negative prognostic biomarker in gastric cancer

Gastric cancer is a common malignancy with a high mortality rate. Improvement in survival has been observed with therapies targeting HER2 and Claudin 18.2 or with immune checkpoint inhibitors. Despite these advancements, the prognosis remains poor. Therefore, there is a need to identify new prognostic biomarkers that may play a role in gastric cancer and then conduct studies that can target these molecules. In this study, bioinformatics databases were utilized to analyze CPNE2 gene expression in normal and tumor samples, and its association with cancer stage was investigated. The relationship between CPNE2 gene expression and Overall Survival (OS) was analyzed. CPNE2 gene expression was significantly higher in gastric tumor samples compared to normal tissues (p < 0.05). Higher CPNE2 expression was observed in stages 2, 3, and 4 compared to stage 1. Elevated CPNE2 gene expression was associated with shorter mOS in both the GeneChip Gastric Cancer and RNAseq STAD databases. In the OS analysis using the GeneChip database, the hazard ratio (HR) was 1.72 (1.37-2.16), p = 1.8e-6, with a false discovery rate (FDR) of 1%, and a cutoff value of 311. High CPNE2 gene expression was associated with shorter FP (HR = 1.85 (1.36-2.51), P = 6e-05, FDR = 2%, cutoff value = 216). In our study, higher CPNE2 gene expression was detected in advanced-stage patients with gastric cancer compared to early-stage patients, and high CPNE2 expression was found to be associated with poor survival.

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s13205-025-04491-3.