ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Oncol.
Sec. Cancer Molecular Targets and Therapeutics
Volume 15 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fonc.2025.1592989
A pan-cancer analysis of the prognostic and immunological roles of Zinc Finger Protein 514 (ZNF514) in human tumors
Provisionally accepted
- 1Shandong University, Jinan, China
- 2Department of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, Central Hospital Affiliated to Shandong First Medical University, Jinan, Shandong Province, China
- 3Central Hospital Affiliated to Shandong First Medical University, Jinan, Shandong Province, China
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Background: Recent studies have highlighted the essential role of the zinc finger gene family, whose encoded proteins play a pivotal role in all stages of tumor initiation and development. Zinc Finger Protein 514 (ZNF514) is a member of the ZNF family, and its abnormal expression and prognostic value in human pan-cancerhave not yet been described. The purpose of this study is to investigate the prognostic and immunological roles of ZNF514 in pan-cancer and to confirm its cancer-promoting effect in renal clear cell carcinoma.Methods: In our study, we utilized the Human Protein Atlas (HPA) database to determine the expression of ZNF514 in human normal and tumor tissues. We also used the Tumor Immune Estimation Resource 2.0 (TIMER 2.0) database to investigate the association between ZNF514 expression and immune checkpoint genes and immune infiltration. To detect the expression and prognostic value of ZNF514 in pan-cancers, we utilized The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) or the Genotype-Tissue Expression (GTEx) databases and analyzed the data using the Kaplan-Meier plotter, GEPIA2, cBioPortal, or Xiantao software. Additionally, we obtained the protein-protein interaction network of ZNF514 from the STRING database. To validate our findings, we performed immunohistochemistry on clinical samples. Furthermore, we conducted cellular functional experiments to examine the effects of ZNF514 overexpression or knockdown on renal clear cell carcinoma cell proliferation, migration, and invasion.Results: Our study found that ZNF514 expression was elevated in tumor tissues than in normal tissues in most tumor types. Furthermore, high expression of ZNF514 was associated with poor overall survival (OS) and disease-free survival (DFS) in certain tumor types. Further analysis of ZNF514 gene mutation data revealed that ZNF514 protein is infrequently mutated in human cancers. Moreover, ZNF514 affected prognosis and was associated with the expression of multiple immune checkpoint genes and the abundance of tumor-infiltrating immune cells across multiple types of cancer. Finally, our molecular biology experiments confirmed the oncogenic effect of ZNF514 in renal clear cell carcinoma.Our study revealed that ZNF514 may serve as an immunological and prognostic biomarker in multiple human cancers, especially in KIRC, LIHC, LUSC, and COAD.
Keywords: ZNF514, Pan-cancer analysis, bioinformatics, prognosis, Immune infiltration
Received: 13 Mar 2025; Accepted: 27 May 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Zhao, lin, Ji, Sun, Liu and Wan. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Shengnan Sun, Central Hospital Affiliated to Shandong First Medical University, Jinan, 271000, Shandong Province, China
Yi Liu, Department of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, Central Hospital Affiliated to Shandong First Medical University, Jinan, 271000, Shandong Province, China
Qiang Wan, Central Hospital Affiliated to Shandong First Medical University, Jinan, 271000, Shandong Province, China
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