Downregulation of TRMT9B and its association with clinicopathological features in thyroid cancer: an analysis of public datasets

ABSTRACT Objective: To investigate the association between TRMT9B expression and clinicopathological features in thyroid carcinoma.

Methods

TRMT9B mRNA expression was analyzed using The Cancer Genome Atlas Thyroid Cancer (TCGA-THCA) and Genotype-Tissue Expression (GTEx) datasets as well as six independent Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) datasets. Protein-level data were obtained from The Human Protein Atlas. Associations between TRMT9B expression and clinicopathological parameters were evaluated in the TCGA cohort.

Results

TRMT9B mRNA was significantly downregulated in thyroid tumors compared with normal tissues across multiple cohorts. In the TCGA cohort, lower TRMT9B expression was significantly correlated with advanced T stage, lymph node involvement, and aggressive histological variants of papillary thyroid carcinoma. Immunohistochemistry data qualitatively supported these findings: protein staining was lower in tumor samples than in healthy tissue.