The Diagnostic and Prognostic Value of LIMK1/2: A Pan-Cancer Analysis

Background. LIM Kinase 1/2 (LIMK1/2) is a member of a conserved gene family of serine/threonine kinases. Objective. This study aims to unravel the diagnostic and prognostic value of LIMK1/2 in pan-cancer. Methods. A total of 33 cancer types with 11,057 samples from the TCGA database were downloaded. The immune subtypes C1 to C6 of cancers were indicated by previous studies. The ESTIMATE algorithm was used to calculate the infiltrating levels of immune cells and stromal cells. Cancer stemness was computed by DNAss and RNAss. Drug response was estimated using the CellMiner database. The functional enrichment analysis was performed by the Gene Set Enrichment Analysis method. Results. LIMK1 is highly upregulated in multiple cancer tissues compared with normal tissues. LIMK2 is also significantly dysregulated in various cancer types. Abnormally expressed LIMK1 and LIMK2 can effectively predict the overall survival of different cancer patients. Further analyses were conducted to reveal the correlation between LIMK1/2 expression and immune subtype, immune scores, cancer stemness, tumor mutation burden, drug response, and functional enrichment analysis. Conclusion. The results provide a comprehensive insight into LIMK1 and LIMK2 in multiple cancers and as novel therapeutic targets for cancer treatment.