The Bioinformatics and Experimental Analysis of CD276 for Prognosis and Immune Infiltrates in Colon Adenocarcinoma

Colon adenocarcinoma (COAD), although the third-most common type of gastrointestinal tumors, still lacks specific biomarkers for early diagnosis, treatment, and prognosis.

This study aimed to evaluate the CD276 in tumorigenesis, prognosis and immunity for colon adenocarcinoma.

The CD276 expression in colon adenocarcinoma was established by using RNA-sequencing transcriptomic data of The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) databases. The biological functions of CD276 were evaluated using the Metascape database and Gene Set Enrichment Analysis (GSEA). The association between CD276 and immune cell infiltration was investigated by TIMER website. Correlation analysis was performed between CD276 expression and clinicopathological characteristics. CD276 expression was significantly elevated in colon adenocarcinoma tumor (p < 0.0001). High CD276 was associated with microsatellite instability (MSI) status, patients' survival, and disease progression. Cox regression analysis revealed that CD276 was a risk factor for overall survival [hazard ratio (HR): 1.848, p = 2.64E-03], disease-specific survival (HR: 2.406, p = 5.35E-04), and progression-free interval (HR: 1.772, p = 2.04E-03). Moreover, CD276 level was significantly associated with tumor immune cell infiltration, biomarkers of immune cells, and immune checkpoint expression.

Our analyses indicated that increased CD276 may contribute to colon adenocarcinoma development by activating tumor-promoting signal pathways and altering the immune microenvironment.