Low Expression of PDHX is Associated with Poor Prognosis and Immune Infiltration in Gastric Cancer

Abstract Background : Pyruvate dehydrogenase protein X (PDHX) is a non-catalytic subunit of the pyruvate dehydrogenase (PDH) complex. It is located in the center of mitochondrial energy metabolism and is an essential component to maintain the biological activity of PDH complex. The purpose of this study was to explore its expression level in gastric cancer and its relationship with immune infiltration. Methods: Through immunohistochemical analysis of 80 pairs of gastric cancer tissue samples and open database analys such as Kaplan-Meier Plotter, TIMER2.0,GEPIA,String and DAVID database. Results : We found that the expression of PDHX in paracancerous tissues was significantly higher than that in gastric cancer tissues. Database analysis showed that the expression of PDHX was low in gastric cancer tissues, and the total survival time (OS) of relatively high expression in gastric cancer patients was higher. In N1~N3 and M stages, the P values of OS and PFS with high expression of PDHX were less than 0.05. It is suggested that the overexpression of PDHX may affect the prognosis of gastric cancer patients with lymph node and distant metastasis. Conclusions: Therefore, we concluded that the expression of PDHX is suppressed in gastric cancer and has a longer overall survival time of 5 years in patients with relatively high expression, and that the increased expression of PDHX may improve the prognosis of patients with lymph node and distant metastasis of gastric cancer.