A pan-cancer analysis of the oncogenic role of Bcl2-associated athanogene 2(BAG2) in human tumors

Abstract Background: As a major public health problem in the world, malignant tumor seriously threatens human life and health. The pathogenesis of cancer has been widely discussed. It is usually caused by the dysfunction of genes that regulate the basic process of cells. Studies have confirmed that Bcl-2-associated antiapoptotic gene 2 (BAG2) is widely expressed in a variety of malignant tumors. Through interaction with relevant signal molecules in the tumor microenvironment, BAG2 is involved in regulating tumor cell apoptosis, proliferation, and migration. BAG2 is expected to become a new target for tumor therapy in the future. Although emerging a large number of evidence supports the relationship between BAG2 and cancers, no pan-cancer analysis is available. Methods and Results: We thus explored the potential oncogenic roles of BAG2 based on the datasets of TCGA (The cancer genome atlas) and GEO (Gene expression omnibus). The comprehensive analyses for BAG2 in various tumors, including gene expression, diagnosis, prognosis, immune-related features, genetic alteration, and function enrichment, were conducted based on multiple databases and analysis tools. Immunofluorescence to detect the locations of BAG2 in three cancer cell lines. To verify the results further, immunoblotting was used to measure the expression of BAG2 in KIRC patients’ tissue samples. The drug of BAG2 were analyzed by using the Drugbank database. Take together, from our comprehensive pan cancer analysis of BAG2, we found a statistical association between BAG2 expression and clinical prognosis, immune cell infiltration, tumor mutation burden or microsatellite instability of a variety of human cancers. Conclusions: These results suggest that BAG2 might be served as prognostic biomarkers for cancer.