Molecular Analysis of Prognosis and Immune Infiltration of Ovarian Cancer Based on Homeobox D Genes
Background. Homeobox D (HOXD) genes were associated with cancer pathogenesis. However, the role of HOXD genes in ovarian cancer (OC) and the possible mechanisms involved are unclear. In this study, we analyzed the function and regulatory mechanisms and functions of HOXD genes in OC based on comprehensive bioinformatics analysis. Methods. Expression of HOXD1/3/4/8/9/10/11/12/13 mRNA was analyzed between OC tissue and normal tissue using ONCOMINE, GEO, and TCGA databases. The relationship between HOXD expression and clinical stage was studied by GEPIA. The Kaplan-Meier plotter was used to analyze prognosis. cBioPortal was used to analyze the mutation and coexpression of HOXDs. GO and KEGG analyses were performed by the DAVID software to predict the function of HOXD coexpression genes. Immune infiltration analysis was used to evaluate the relationship between the expression of HOXD genes and 24 immune infiltrating cells. Results. The expression of HOXD3/4/8/9/10/11 was significantly lower in OC tissues than in normal ovarian tissues, while the expression of HOXD1/12/13 was significantly higher in OC tissues. The expression of HOXD genes was associated with FIGO stage, primary therapy outcome, tumor status, anatomic neoplasm subdivision, and age. The expression levels of HOXD1/3/4/8/9/10 correlated with tumor stage. HOXD1/8/9 could be served as ideal biomarkers to distinguish OC from normal tissue. Low HOXD9 expression was associated with shorter overall survival (OS) (HR: 0.75; 95% CI: 0.58–0.98;