XPF Expression And Its Relationship With The Risk And Prognosis Of Colorectal Cancer

Abstract Background: XPF is a key factor contributing to DNA damage excision of nucleotide excision repair pathway. The relationship between XPF expression and the risk and prognosis of colorectal cancer (CRC) is unclear. Methods: In this experiment, a total of 824 cases of colorectal tissue were collected. XPF protein expression was detected by immunohistochemical staining. In order to explore the differential expression of XPF between CRC and non-cancer controls, and the correlation between XPF expression and CRC clinicopathological parameters, we conducted a non-parametric test. Univariate and multivariate Cox regression analyses were conducted to investigate the relationship between XPF expression and CRC prognosis. The Java based software GSEA as well as STRING, David, GO, KEGG were used to explore the function and regulation network of XPF. Results: The results demonstrated that the XPF expression in CRC was significantly up-regulated compared with non-tumor controls (P < 0.001) and adenoma tissues (P < 0.001). XPF protein was highly expressed in the dynamic sequence of anal diseases to adenoma tissues to CRC. Expression of XPF was related to tumor location (P=0.005) and with tumor growth pattern (P=0.009). The results of prognosis analysis suggested that in individuals with T1-2 invasive extent, XPF low expression may be significantly associated with better overall survival (HR = 7.978, 95% CI: 1.208-52.673, P = 0.031). XPF and its interacting genes played a vital role in different processes of nucleotide excision repair pathway. XPF expression was related with Ubiquitin like protein specific protease activity.Conclusions: XPF might be a promising biomarker for CRC risk, and also showed potential as a prognostic predictor in CRC patients.