ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Oncol.
Sec. Head and Neck Cancer
Volume 15 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fonc.2025.1617202
This article is part of the Research TopicAdvancements in Personalized Medicine for Head and Neck Cancer: Molecular-based Approaches to Treatment and CareView all 8 articles
Network toxicological insights into DEHP exposure and thyroid cancer development and progression
Provisionally accepted
Yuhang Zhang
Qiang Wang*- Shanxi Provincial People's Hospital, Taiyuan, Shanxi Province, China
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This study aimed to identify markers of di-2-ethylhexyl phthalate (DEHP) exposure associated with thyroid cancer occurrence and prognosis by integrating network toxicology and molecular docking. Expression profiles and clinical information were obtained from TCGA-THCA and five GEO datasets (GSE3467, GSE3678, GSE33630, GSE53157, and GSE60542). Venn diagram analysis revealed six overlapping genes (CYP1B1, ABCC3, KRT19, CUX2, GABRB2, and TNFSF15) between the combined dataset and DEHP's target genes. GO and KEGG enrichment analyses were conducted on these overlapping genes. Through multivariate COX regression model, it is clearly seen that CYP1B1, GABRB2 and TNFSF15 are highly expressed, and can basically be determined as candidate hub genes. Kaplan-Meier survival analysis indicated that the high-risk group had a significantly poorer prognosis (p < 0.05). Furthermore, prognostic ROC curves based on the GEO validation set demonstrated that CYP1B1, GABRB2, and TNFSF15 were significantly associated with thyroid cancer diagnosis (AUC exceeding 0.86). Finally, molecular docking was employed to visualize the interaction sites between DEHP and its target genes. In conclusion, this study provides novel targets for the prevention and treatment of thyroid cancer in the context of DEHP exposure.
Keywords: DEHP, Network toxicological, thyroid cancer, TCGA, GEO
Received: 24 Apr 2025; Accepted: 31 Jul 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Zhang and Wang. 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: Qiang Wang, Shanxi Provincial People's Hospital, Taiyuan, 030012, Shanxi Province, China
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