Pan-Cancer Analysis of NOP2 Reveals Its Prognostic Relevance and Association With the Tumor Immune Microenvironment.

Background: RNA 5-methylcytosine (m Methods: We conducted an integrative pan-cancer analysis of NOP2 across 33 tumor types using publicly available datasets and web tools, including The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA), the Human Protein Atlas (HPA), Gene Expression Profiling Interactive Analysis 2 (GEPIA2), cBioPortal for Cancer Genomics (cBioPortal), the University of Alabama at Birmingham Cancer data analysis portal (UALCAN), Search Tool for the Retrieval of Interacting Genes/Proteins (STRING), and SangerBox. NOP2 expression differences between tumor and normal tissues were evaluated at both mRNA and protein levels. Survival analyses were conducted using GEPIA2, and genetic alterations were characterized via cBioPortal. The relationships between NOP2 expression and the tumor immune microenvironment were assessed by estimating tumor-infiltrating immune cell proportions with Cell-type Identification By Estimating Relative Subsets Of RNA Transcripts (CIBERSORT), followed by correlation analyses with immune cell infiltration levels, immune checkpoint-related genes, tumor mutational burden (TMB), and microsatellite instability (MSI). Finally, protein-protein interaction and co-expression analyses were conducted to identify NOP2-interacting and NOP2-correlated genes, which were subjected to functional enrichment analyses to infer potential biological pathways associated with NOP2. Results: NOP2 mRNA was significantly upregulated in 20 of 33 tumor types compared with normal tissues (|log Conclusion: This pan-cancer analysis shows that NOP2 is broadly dysregulated and associated with adverse survival and immune-related features across multiple human cancers. However, given the exploratory and largely univariate nature of the present study, its independent prognostic value and clinical utility require further validation in cancer-specific cohorts with multivariable and comparative predictive analyses.