ARNTL2, an Immunoregulation-Related Prognostic Biomarker in Pan-Cancer and Lung Adenocarcinoma

Abstract Background ARNTL2 is a member of the PAS superfamily that promotes tumor progression. However, the role of ARNTL2 in lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD) remains unclear. The purpose of our study was to investigate the function of ARNTL2 in LUAD. Methods The expression, clinical features, and prognostic role of ARNTL2 in pan-cancer were evaluated using The Cancer Genome Atlas and Genotype-Tissue Expression data. GSEA and GSVA of ARNTL2 were performed using the R package “clusterProfiler.” The correlation between immune cell infiltration level and ARNTL2 expression was analyzed using two sources of immune cell infiltration data, including the TIMER2 and ImmuCellAI database. Finally,we analyzed the correlation between ARNTL2 and IC50 of 192 drugs. Results ARNTL2 was substantially overexpressed in LUAD and pan-cancer. High ARNTL2 expression predicted poor survival in patients with LUAD. We also found that ARNTL2 expression was positively associated with the infiltration levels of immunosuppressive cells, such as tumor associated macrophages, cancer associated fibroblasts and Tregs. Among the 192 anti-cancer drugs, ARNTL2 expression was positively correlated with IC50 of 114 anti-cancer drugs, such as SB505124, Doramapimod, Nutlin-3a (-), Sabutoclax, AZD5991, PF-4708671, Elephantin, PRIMA-1MET, Sorafenib, Vorinostat, and MK-2206. Conclusions Our results revealed that ARNTL2 is a potential prognostic biomarker in LUAD. An elevated ARNTL2 expression indicates an immunosuppressive microenvironment, and targeted therapies against ARNTL2 have excellent potential.