Pan-cancer analysis of the cuproptosis-related gene DBT that serves as an immunotherapy and prognostic biomarker

Background: Recently, it has been reported that Dihydrolipoamide Branched Chain Transacylase E2 (DBT) is one of the genes related to protein acylation in the process of cuproptosis. However, the role of DBT in pan-cancer and its regulatory mechanism remains unclear. Methods: In the current study, we used a variety of public bioinformatics platforms to first verify the expression of DBT in tumor and normal tissues, and then further analyze the relationship between DBT expression in tumor and the prognosis of cancer patients, and explore the mechanism of action at the molecular level. After that, the effect of DBT expression on tumor immune microenvironment in pan-carcinoma was discussed. Finally, functional enrichment analysis of DBT related genes was performed. Results: We found that DBT was significantly down-regulated in most cancer types, and upregulated DBT predicted poor overall survival (OS) for patients in pancreatic adenocarcinoma (PAAD), good OS and disease free survival (DFS) for patients in kidney renal clear cell carcinoma (KIRC), and poor DFS for patients in bladder urothelial carcinoma(BLCA). Further DBT molecular level research showed that the genetic alteration of DBT showed a poor prognosis in BLCA, ESCA and acute myeloid leukemia patients, and the promoter methylation level of DBT was also significant changes in multiple tumors. We found that the expression of DBT was significantly positively related with immune infiltration level in diverse cancer types, and the enrichment analysis showed that DBT related genes were related to protein metabolism and related enzyme stability. Conclusion: DBT could be an immunotherapy and prognostic biomarker in multiple cancers.