Bioinformatics Prediction and Experimental Verification Confirm SCD as a Prognostic Factor in Chromophobe Renal Cell Carcinoma

Background: Stearoyl-CoA desaturase (SCD) is a key enzyme required for the biosynthesis of monounsaturated fatty acids and catalyzes the D (9)-cis desaturation of various fatty acyl-CoA substrates. In this study, we investigated the expression levels of SCD in chromophobe renal cell carcinoma (chRCC) and several types of cancers through TCGA database. Materials and methods Genomic data and clinical information of patients were obtained from the TCGA database and The Affiliated Hospital of Qingdao University. The relationships between clinicopathologic factors and SCD expression were analyzed with the Wilcoxon signed-rank test. Gene Set Enrichment Analysis (GSEA) was performed to explore the mechanism of SCD. Results We observed that SCD was highly expressed in chRCC and several types of cancers, and SCD expression was associated with poor prognosis in chRCC. Immunohistochemical analysis revealed that SCD was highly expressed in tumor tissues compared with para-cancer normal tissues. GSEA showed that asthma, graft versus host disease, allograft rejection, primary immunodeficiency, NOD-like receptor signaling pathway, cell adhesion molecules (CAMS), and cytokine-cytokine receptor interaction were enriched in the SCD low expression group. Conclusion Overall, SCD was a reliable prognostic biomarker for chRCC. Moreover, the signature had significant potential for assessing the biological mechanism of tumors and providing individualized treatment.