Abstract
Introduction: Lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD) has drawn attention recently because of its poor prognosis, limited responsiveness to treatment, and lack of trustworthy markers for predicting its development or its response to treatment. It has been established that the pathophysiology and development of various diseases, including malignancies, are influenced by the elongation of the very-long-chain fatty acids gene family (ELOVLs), a collection of genes responsible for elongating saturated and polyunsaturated fatty acids. Unknown is the specific function of ELOVLs in LUAD. Thus, the goal of our research was to elucidate the immune response and prognostic significance linked to ELOVL genes in LUAD.
Methods: Open-access resources such as the TCGA and GTEx datasets were used to analyze the gene expression of ELOVLs across various types of cancers. We investigated the prognostic significance of the ELOVL family using Kaplan-Meier analysis. The cBioPortal database was utilized to assess the ELOVLs' genetic mutation profile. Several techniques were employed to get an understanding into the connection between tumor immunity and ELOVL genes. The WebGestalt database was used to carry out the function and pathway enrichment study of the ELOVL family. Immunohistochemical staining was utilized for the purpose of experimental validation.
Results: We observed a substantial increase in gene expression in ELOVL1, ELOVL2, ELOVL4, ELOVL6, and ELOVL7 when comparing LUAD tumor samples to normal tissues. The upregulation of ELOVL2, ELOVL6, and ELOVL7 has been linked to tumor development and worse clinical outcome. The relevance was further highlighted by our examination of the immune infiltration pattern, which revealed a robust relationship between ELOVL2 expression and mast cell, macrophage, naive B cell, and myeloid dendritic cell in LUAD. ELOVL6 expression exhibited close association with B cell, macrophage, mast cell, CD4+ memory T cell, neutrophil, NK cell, and follicular helper T cell in LUAD. ELOVL7 expression exhibited close association with B cell, macrophage, mast cell, CD4+ memory T cell in LUAD.
Conclusions: This study showed the significant immunogenetic and prognostic importance of ELOVL2, ELOVL6, and ELOVL7 in LUAD. Our findings highlight the importance of these genes and imply that they could function as distinct prognostic markers. Their discovery as immunotherapeutic targets offers an important benefit in fighting against LUAD.