Pan-cancer analysis reveals potential of RRM2 as a prognostic and immunological biomarker in human cancer

Background Increasing evidence suggests that RRM2 plays an important role in cancer onset, development and progression. However, the biological significance of RRM2 in pan-cancer is unclear.In this study, the expression profile and prognostic significance of RRM2 were comprehensively investigated for the first time using bioinformatics techniques, as well as the relationship between RRM2 and clinicopathologic parameters and immune cell infiltration.This study is the first to conduct a pan-cancer analysis of RRM2 for aiding the diagnosis and treatment of cancer. Methods We comprehensively studied the expression level of RRM2, patient prognosis and its relationship with clinicopathological parameters and immune cell infiltration using bioinformatics techniques.We thoroughly analyzed the function of RRM2 in cancer through the Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and Genotype-Tissue expression (GTEx) databases. Multiple web softwares and platforms were used for data analysis, including HPA,Cytoscape, GEPIA2.0, UALCAN, STRING, CancerSEA and so on. Results The results suggest that RRM2 was significantly upregulated in a variety of tumors and is associated with prognosis.Pan-cancer analysis showed that high RRM2 expression was associated with disease-free survival (DFS) and overall survival (OS) in a variety of tumors.The mRNA expression of RRM2 was related to the infiltration of various immune cells, including DC, nTreg, iTreg, Monocyte and B cells. Finally, Gene Ontology (GO), Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) and Gene Set Enrichment Analysis (GSEA) were used to explore the role of RRM2 in pan-cancer. Conclusion RRM2 is recognized as a promising target for diagnosis, treatment and prognosis prediction and is critical for DNA replication and cancer cell proliferation.