CDKN2A is a prognostic biomarker and correlated with immune infiltrates in hepatocellular carcinoma

Cyclin dependent kinase inhibitor 2A (CDKN2A) is an essential regulator of immune cell func-tionality, but the mechanisms whereby it drives immune infiltration in hepatocellular carci-noma (HCC) remain unclear. In the present study, we studied the association with CDKN2A expression and immune invasion with the risk of developing HCC. A totally of 2207 dif-ferent genes were found between HCC and adjacent liver tissues from TCGA and GEO databases. CDKN2A was highly expressed in HCC and associated with poorer overall sur-vival and disease-free survival. Notably, CDKN2A expression was positively correlated with infiltrating levels into purity, B cell, CD+8 T cell, CD+4 T cell, macrophage, neutrophil, and dendritic cells in HCC. CDKN2A expression showed strong correlations between diverse immune marker sets in HCC. These findings suggest that CDKN2A expression potentially contributes to regulation of tumor-associated macrophages and can be used as a prognos-tic biomarker for determining prognosis and immune infiltration in HCC.

Automated summary

CDKN2A is highly expressed in HCC and associated with poorer overall survival and disease-free survival, as well as positively correlated with infiltrating levels of various immune cells. These findings suggest that CDKN2A may contribute to the regulation of tumor-associated macrophages and serve as a prognostic biomarker for prognosis and immune infiltration in HCC.