Background
NOP2/Sun RNA methyltransferase 2 (NSUN2), an important methyltransferase of m5C, has been poorly studied in cancers, and the relationship between NSUN2 and immunity remains largely unclear. Therefore, the
Conclusion
NSUN2 serves as a pan-cancer prognostic biomarker and is correlated with the immune infiltration of tumors.
Methods
The TIMER, CPTAC and other databases were used to analyze the expression of NSUN2, its correlation with clinical stage and its prognostic value across cancers. Moreover, the TISIDB, TIMER2.0 and Sangerbox platform were used to depict the relationships between NSUN2 and immune molecular subtypes, tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs), immune checkpoints (ICPs) and immunoregulatory genes. Furthermore, the NSUN2-interacting proteins and related genes as well as the coexpression networks of NSUN2 in LIHC, LUAD and HNSC were explored with the STRING, DAVID, GEPIA2 and LinkedOmics databases. Finally, the subcellular location and function of NSUN2 in HepG2, A549 and 5-8F cells were investigated by performing immunofluorescence, CCK-8 and wound healing assays.
Results
Overall, NSUN2 was highly expressed and related to a poor prognosis in most types of cancers and was also significantly associated with immune molecular subtypes in some cancer types. Furthermore, NSUN2 was significantly associated with the levels of ICPs and immunoregulatory genes. In addition, NSUN2 was found to be involved in a series of immune-related biological processes, such as the humoral immune response in LIHC and LUAD and T-cell activation and B-cell activation in HNSC. Immunofluorescence and CCK-8 assays also confirmed that NSUN2 was widely expressed in the nucleus and cytoplasm, and overexpression of NSUN2 promoted the proliferation and migration of HepG2, A549 and 5-8F cells. NSUN2 was also confirmed to positively regulate the expression of PD-L1.