CTSS is associated with immunity and affects prognosis in pan-cancer

Abstract

Abstract Background: CTSS(Cathepsisn S) is a lysosomal cysteine protease which is found in many tissues and plays multifarious roles. However, the role of CTSS in tumorigenesis is poorly defined. We investigated the association between CTSS levels and prognosis of cancer patients to determine prognostic value in this study. Methods: In this study, the RNA-sequencing (RNA-Seq) gene expression profile and clinical data were downloaded from the TCGA database and the UCSC database. Immunohistochemical images of CTSS and its expression in normal tissues were obtained from HPA database.Statistical analysis and data visualization were performed on the relationship between CTSS expression and prognosis, TMB,MSI, immune score, immune checkpoint and enrichment pathway through R language version 4.1.1 and its additional package. Results:Overall, CTSS is differentially expressed in most cancers and adjacent normal tissues.In addition, multiple survival analyses showed that CTSS significantly affected patient prognoses.CTSS was strongly associated with TMB in 8 cancers and MSI in 12 cancers. In addition, CTSS expression level is positively correlated with immune score in many cancers. Finally, GSEA analysis showed that CTSS was closely related to cell cycle, immune function, JAK-STAT and other biological functions and signaling pathways Conclusion:In some tumor patients, the high expression of CTSS can be used as a biomarker with better prognosis.In contrast, high CTSS expression indicated poor prognosis in some tumors, especially in LGG. The relationship between CTSS and immune checkpoint and GSEA analysis of CTSS may provide some ideas for potential immunotherapy and related pathways of some tumors.