Abstract
The present study evaluates the value of mitochondrial antiviral signaling (MAVS) expression as a potential diagnostic biomarker and therapeutic target for ovarian cancer (OC) and analyses the underlying biological mechanism in this pathology. First, the association between MAVS expression determined by immunohistochemical (IHC) and clinical characteristics was systematically investigated. Overexpression of MAVS was associated with advanced clinical factors and poor survival of OC patients. Second, bioinformatics analyses, namely, gene expression, mutation analysis, gene set variation analysis (GSVA), gene set enrichment analysis (GSEA), and weighted gene co-expression network analysis (WGCNA), were performed to evaluate the potential biological functions of MAVS in OC. The results showed that MAVS may play a critical role in immune cell infiltration. CIBERSORT was applied to assess the infiltration of immune cells in OC. CD8+ T cells, γδT cells, and eosinophils had significantly negative correlations with MAVS expression. Finally, sensitivity analysis found that patients with high MAVS expression were predicted to be significantly less responsive to cisplatin and paclitaxel. In conclusion, these findings suggested that MAVS influences biological behavior by regulating the immune response and that it can be used as a predictive marker for poor prognosis in OC.