Systematic analysis of fatty acid desaturases in breast invasive carcinoma: The prognosis, gene mutation, and tumor immune microenvironment

Abstract

Breast invasive carcinoma (BRCA) is one of the most common cancers in women, with its malignant progression significantly influenced by intracellular fatty acid (FA) desaturation. Stearoyl-coenzyme A desaturase (SCD) and fatty acid desaturase 2 (FADS2) are two key rate-limiting enzymes that catalyze the FA desaturation process and cooperate to accelerate lipid metabolic activities. In this study, we investigated the potential functions of SCD and FADS2 in BRCA using bioinformatic analysis and experimental validation. The gene expression profiling interactive analysis database showed that the expression of SCD or FADS2 genes was positively linked to worse overall survival and disease-free survival in the Cancer Genome Atlas database-BRCA. The University of Alabama at Birmingham cancer data analysis portal database indicates that the expression and methylation levels of SCD or FADS2 are associated with various clinicopathological factors in patients with BRCA. Moreover, the tumor immune estimation resource and TISCH databases showed a significant positive correlation between the expression of SCD and the abundance of CD8+ T cells and macrophage cell infiltration, while the expression of FADS2 was positively correlated with the abundance of B cells. Meanwhile, SCD or FADS2 had a higher expression in monocytes/macrophages analyzed the BRCA_GSE143423 and BRCA_GSE114727_inDrop datasets. Mechanistically, the Search Tool for the Retrieval of Distant Genes and CancerSEA databases showed that SCD and FADS2 were upregulated in several cell biology signaling pathways, particularly in inflammation, apoptosis, and DNA repair. Finally, SCD or FADS2 knockdown inhibited the proliferation of MCF-7 and MDA-MB-231 cells. In summary, SCD and FADS2 play significant roles in BRCA development, suggesting that they may serve as potential therapeutic targets for BRCA treatment.