Bioinformatics comprehensive analysis confirmed the potential involvement of SLC22A1 in lower-grade glioma progression and prognosis

Background: Although it has been established that the human Solute Carrier Family 22 (SLC22) functions as a cationic transporter, influencing cellular biological metabolism by modulating the uptake of various cations, its impact on cancer prognosis remains unclear. Methods: We conducted a comprehensive analysis utilizing data from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and other databases to assess the prognostic value and functional implications across various tumors. Silence of SLC22A1 RNA in glioma U251 cells was performed to access the impact of SLC22A1 on lowergrade glioma (LGG) progression. Results: Our findings demonstrated a significant correlation between SLC22A1 expression and the survival time of patients with various cancers (p < 0.05). Importantly, we found the potential involvement of SLC22A1 in occurrence and progress of certain cancers, with a pronounced impact on LGG. Further examination of the SLC22A1-LGG relationship revealed its status as an independent risk factor for LGG, suggesting its potential involvement in regulating diverse immune pathways and metabolic activities. Chinese Glioma Genome Atlas (CGGA) data supported the reliability of the risk score as a prognostic and recurrence indicator, emphasizing the accuracy of the nomograph (1, 3, and 5-year-AUC >0.8). Cell proliferation and clone formation experiment proved that decreased expression of SLC22A1 in glioma U251 cells inhibited glioma cell growth. Conclusion: Our findings suggest SLC22A1 has huge prospects as a promising biomarker and therapeutic target for LGG prognosis. SLC22A1 has only been proved to support cellular function previously. Our findings demonstrated a robust connection between the tumor microenvironment and functional proteins that maintain basal cell metabolism, which gifts unique tumor immune characteristics of gliomas. Additionally, we provide a highly practical prediction model for estimating the survival rate of LGG patients.