The prognostic and immune significance of SLAMF9 in pan-cancer and validation of its role in colorectal cancer

SLAMF9 is a member of the family of conserved lymphocyte activation molecules (SLAMF), Unlike other SLAMs, which have been extensively studied, investigations on SLAMF9 have primarily concentrated on an individual or limited number of types of cancers, but without systematic investigation across different cancer types. Through systematic pan-cancer analysis, we demonstrated that SLAMF9 expression was increased in a variety of tumor tissues, and that overexpression of this protein may lower patient survival in the majority of malignancies. Furthermore, as per the correlation analysis the expression of SLAMF9 was strongly correlated with the expression of numerous immune cell infiltrates, immune checkpoint inhibitors, tumor mutation load, and microsatellite instability. More importantly, the expression of SLAMF9 is highly correlated with epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) score. Additionally, it was demonstrated through cell-based research that SLAMF9 knockdown may lessen the proliferative activity, cell motility, and invasion potential of CRC cells. A nude mouse xenograft model showed that suppressing of SLAMF9 expression could considerably slow tumor growth. Therefore, the results of this study indicated that SLAMF9 can be exploited as a potential prognostic and therapeutic biomarker of tumors and it may have a substantial role in the proliferation as well as migration of CRC cells.