DOK1: A Promising Biomarker for Tumor Prognosis and Targeted Therapy in Renal Clear Cell Carcinoma

Abstract

This study aimed to investigate the prognostic significance of Docking protein 1 (DOK1) in renal clear cell carcinoma (ccRCC) and its association with immune cell infiltration, and explicitly verified by in vitro assays. Differences in DOK1 expression in ccRCC tissues and normal tissues were assessed from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) databases, and prognostic analyses were also performed. Lentiviral vectors were utilized to construct 786-O and 769-P cell lines knocking down DOK1. The function of DOK1 was further verified by a series of in vitro assays. Functional enrichment analysis was performed using the “Cluster Profiler” software package. Using the Tumor Immune Estimation Resource (TIMER) and the Tumor Immune System Interaction Database (TISIDB), the relationship between DOK1 and immune infiltration was investigated. This study elucidates that high expression of DOK1 predicts poor prognosis and is associated with demographic factors and clinicopathologic characteristics of ccRCC patients. In vitro functional experiments further confirmed it. Detailed bioinformatics analysis showed that DOK1 expression was significantly correlated with multiple immune cell infiltrations. High expression of DOK1 predicts poor prognosis in ccRCC patients. Its close association with the immune microenvironment and immunotherapeutic targets may provide new ideas for tumor therapy.