PBK/TOPK 是结肠癌中与抗肿瘤免疫相关的有利预后生物标志物

Immune checkpoint inhibitor therapy has proven efficacy in a subset of colon cancer patients featuring a deficient DNA mismatch repair system or a high microsatellite instability profile.

However, there is high demand for more effective biomarkers to expand the colon cancer population responding to ICI therapy. PBK/TOPK, a serine/threonine kinase, plays a role in cell cycle regulation and mitotic progression.

Here, we investigated the correlation between PBK/TOPK expression and tumor immunity and its prognostic value in colon cancer. Based on large-scale bioinformatics analysis, we discovered that elevated PBK/TOPK expression predicted a favorable outcome in patients with colon cancer and was positively associated with immune infiltration levels of CD8+ T cells, CD4+ T cells, natural killer cells, and M1 macrophages.

In contrast, a negative correlation was found between PBK/TOPK expression and immune suppressor cells, including regulatory T cells and M2 macrophages.

Furthermore, the expression of PBK/TOPK was correlated with the expression of T-cell cytotoxicity genes in colon cancer.

Additionally, high PBK/TOPK expression was associated with mutations in DNA damage repair genes, and thus with increased tumor mutation and neoantigen burden.

These findings suggest that PBK/TOPK may serve as a prognostic and predictive biomarker for immunotherapy in colon cancer.