Hexokinase 3 dysfunction promotes tumorigenesis and immune escape by upregulating monocyte/macrophage infiltration into the clear cell renal cell carcinoma microenvironment

This study aimed to identify the potential prognostic role of HK3 and provide clues about glycolysis and the microenvironmental characteristics of ccRCC. Based on the Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA, n = 533) and Gene expression omnibus (GEO) (n = 127) databases, real-world (n = 377) ccRCC cohorts, and approximately 15,000 cancer samples, the prognostic value and immune implications of HK3 were identified. The functional effects of in ccRCC were analyzed and . The large-scale findings suggested a significantly higher expression in ccRCC tissues and the predictive efficacy of for tumor progression and a poor prognosis. Next, the subgroup survival and Cox regression analyses showed that serves as a promising and independent predictive marker for the prognosis and survival of patients with ccRCC from bioinformatic databases and real-world cohorts. Subsequently, we found that could be used to modulate glycolysis and the malignant behaviors of ccRCC cells. The comprehensive results suggested that is highly correlated with the abundance of immune cells, and specifically stimulates the infiltration of monocytes/macrophages presenting surface markers, regulates the immune checkpoint molecules PD-1 and CTLA-4 of exhaustive T cells, restrains the immune escape of tumor cells, and prompts the immune-rejection microenvironment of ccRCC. In conclusion, the large-scale data first revealed that could affect glycolysis, promote malignant biologic processes, and predict the aggressive progression of ccRCC. may stimulate the abundance of infiltrating monocytes/macrophages presenting surface markers and regulate the key molecular subgroups of immune checkpoint molecules of exhaustive T cells, thus inducing the microenvironmental characteristics of active anti-tumor immune responses.