Bioinformatics analysis of the clinical value and potential mechanisms of AHNAK2 in papillary thyroid carcinoma.

Background: has been recently reported as a biomarker in many cancers. However, a systematic investigation of in papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC) has not been conducted.

Results: is overexpressed in PTC tissues and could be an independent prognostic factor. expression was significantly high in patients with advanced stage, advanced T classification, lymph node metastasis, increased mutations and decreased mutations. Cell adhesion-, cell junction-, and immune-related pathways were the most frequently noted in gene set enrichment analysis. expression in PTC was positively correlated with immune infiltration and negatively correlated with methylation. expression was significantly positively correlated with tumor progression and poor overall survival (OS) in pan-cancer patients.

Conclusions: is a good biomarker for the diagnosis and prognosis of PTC. may promote thyroid cancer progression through cell adhesion-, cell junction-, and immune-related pathways. Methylation may act as an upstream regulator to inhibit the expression and biological function of . Additionally, has broad prognostic value in pan-cancer.

Methods: Based on The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) data, we screened -related genes through weighted gene coexpression network analysis and explored the clinical value and the potential mechanism of in PTC by multiomics analysis.