Expression and role of nuclear receptor-interacting protein 1 (NRIP1) in stomach adenocarcinoma

Background: Nuclear receptor-interacting protein 1 (NRIP1), also named NR140, has been observed differentially express in multiple cancers, but the expression levels and the prognostic role of NRIP1 in stomach adenocarcinoma (STAD) remain unclear.

Methods: We used the Gene Expression Profiling Interactive Analysis (GEPIA) to analyze the NRIP1 expression levels in STAD, subgroups analysis of expression of NRIP1 via the UALCAN dataset. Further, cBioPortal was used to investigate the aberration type, co-mutations status, and located mutation of NRIP1. Correlated genes, and kinases, microRNA (miRNA), and transcription factor (TF) targets were identified using LinkedOmics. The Kaplan-Meier (K-M) plotter was used to analyze the prognosis of NRIP1 and the significantly correlated genes in STAD. Then, the tumor immune estimation resource (Timer) was used to explore the relation between NRIP1 and the immune cell infiltration, and the role of immune cells in STAD. The Human Protein Atlas (HPA) was used to confirm the NRIP1 protein express in STAD stomach tissue and normal stomach tissue.

Results: NRIP1 significantly overexpress in STAD, and the NRIP1 expression levels were impacted by clinical features. Overexpression of NRIP1 indicated the poor prognosis of STAD. Functional enrichment analysis showed the NRIP1 mainly enriched in immune response-regulating signaling pathway, cell-substrate adhesion, mRNA processing, and pathway in cancer. Overexpression USP25, SNYJ1 indicated the poor outcome of STAD, but the overexpression of BACH1 indicated protective biomarker. MIR-331 and MIR-132 have important role in STAD. Further, NRIP1 had a significant relation with immune infiltrates and other defined genes that significantly impact immune infiltrates. Immunohistochemical showed NRIP1 protein was higher in STAD than normal sample.

Conclusions: In this study, we revealed that overexpression of NRIP1 in the STAD sample compared to normal samples, NRIP1 significantly associated with macrophage. The high expression levels of NRIP1 and more macrophage infiltration led to poor prognosis of STAD.