Identification of candidate biomarkers associated with the diagnosis and prognosis of endometrial cancer: a bioinformatics analysis

Abstract Background Endometrial cancer (EC) is a common malignancy tumor that seriously threatens the wellbeing and health of women. This study aimed to map the hub genes and potential pathways that may be involved in EC. Methods In our study, three gene expression profiles of GEO and EC data from the TCGA database were analyzed. We performed WGCNA, and Cox regression analyses to screen hub genes and further validated them by using HPA, KM plots, and other databases. We also studied the methylation level by UCSC Xena and mutation of hub genes using Cbioportal . Results We identified 363 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) (146 upregulated and 217 downregulated genes). Pathway analysis revealed that hub genes are mainly related to cell cycle, DNA damage response, EMT, hormone ER, RAS/MAPK, and PI3K/AKT. Finally, we identified five hub genes that are related to the progression and prognosis of EC and screened several relevant small-molecule drugs. Conclusions MTHFD2, KIF4A, TPX2, RPS6KA6, and SIX1 were identified as candidate biomarkers for further basic and clinical research on endometrial cancer.