Human LY6 gene family: potential tumor-associated antigens and biomarkers of prognosis in uterine corpus endometrial carcinoma

The human Lymphocyte antigen-6 ( ) gene family has recently gained interest for its possible role in tumor progression. We have carried out analyses of all known gene expression and amplification in different cancers using TNMplot and cBioportal. We also have analyzed patient survival by Kaplan-Meier plotter after mining the TCGA database. We report that upregulated expression of many genes is associated with poor survival in uterine corpus endometrial carcinoma (UCEC) cancer patients. Importantly, the expression of several genes is elevated in UCEC when compared to the expression in normal uterine tissue. For example, expression is 8.25× higher in UCEC compared to normal uterine tissue, and this high expression is associated with poor survival with a hazard ratio of 2.42 ( -value = 0.0032). Therefore, some gene products may serve as tumor-associated antigens in UCEC, biomarkers for UCEC detection, and possibly targets for directing UCEC patient therapy. Further analysis of tumor-specific expression of gene family members and LY6-triggered signaling pathways is needed to uncover the function of proteins and their ability to endow tumor survival and poor prognosis in UCEC patients.