Identification of COL7A1 as a prognostic biomarker in lung squamous cell carcinoma

Abstract The Collagen Type VII Alpha 1 Chain (COL7A1) is associated with a variety of cancers, however, COL7A1 gene expression in human lung squamous cell carcinoma (LUSC) and its prognostic value have not been well studied. In this study, we used bioinformatics database to analyze the relationship between COL7A1 expression and survival in LUSC patients such as Oncomine, GEPIA, UALCAN, and STRING. And we used Kaplan–Meier plotter to analyze the prognosis of high or low expression of COL7A1 in different patients. We found that COL7A1 was significantly overexpressed in patients with LUSC. Additionally, in the survival analysis, COL7A1 expression was significantly associated with worse overall survival (OS), first progression (FP), Post-progression survival (PPS) in LUSC patients. Moreover, COL7A1 is closely associated with known biomarkers and key factors of LUSC. We used functional annotation enrichment analysis to show that genes co-expressed with COL7A1 were enriched in biological process (BP), cellular component (CC), molecular function (MF) and KEGG pathways. Furthermore, Laminin 332 and its association with COL7A1 may lead to the activation of the PI3K signaling pathway, ultimately leading to squamous cell carcinoma (SCC). This has also been mentioned in other people's research. Therefore, our work was designed to demonstrate the potential of COL7A1 as a prognostic biomarker in LUSC.