Angiotensinogen, a promising gene signature for rectum and stomach adenocarcinoma patients.

OBJECTIVES

Angiotensinogen (AGT), as a component of the renin-angiotensin system (RAS), is one of the major risk factors for cancer development. To date, there has not been a systematic pan-cancer analysis of AGT.

METHODS

This pan-cancer study comprehensively investigated AGT in 24 different cancers based on the UALCAN, KM plotter, GENT2, HPA, MEXPRESS, cBioportal, STRING, TIMER, and CTD databases.

RESULTS

The results showed that AGT was highly expressed in most tumors, and AGT overexpression may be related to the worst survival of Rectum adenocarcinoma (READ) and Stomach Adenocarcinoma (STAD) patients only. Furthermore, pathway analysis indicated that AGT-associated genes are involved in six critical pathways. Moreover, the higher expression of AGT was found to be detrimental to the promoter methylation level (P<0.05), immune cells infiltration (P<0.05), and genetic alterations. We have also predicted various chemotherapeutic drugs contributing to the expression regulation of AGT.

CONCLUSION

Our results together support that AGT is a possible biomarker for READ and STAD.