High CENPA expression in papillary renal cell carcinoma tissues is associated with poor prognosis

Objective This work focused on investigating the relation of centromeric protein A (CENPA) gene expression with prognosis of papillary renal cell carcinoma (PRCC). Methods We obtained data from PRCC cases in TCGA. Thereafter, CENPA levels between the paired PRCC and matched non-carcinoma samples were analyzed by Wilcoxon rank-sum test, while the relations of clinicopathological characteristics with CENPA level were examined by logistic regression and Wilcoxon rank-sum test. The prognostic value of CENPA was assessed by plotting the receiver operating feature curve (ROC) and calculating the value of area under curve (AUC). In addition, relations between clinicopathological characteristics and PRCC survival were analyzed through Kaplan–Meier (KM) and Cox regression analyses. After dividing the total number of patients into the trial cohort and the validation cohort in a ratio of 7:3, we constructed a nomogram in trial cohort according to multivariate Cox regression results for predicting how CENPA affected patient survival and used the calibration curve to verify its accuracy in both cohorts. We also determined CENPA levels within cancer and matched non-carcinoma samples through immunohistochemistry (IHC). Finally, we utilized functional enrichment for identifying key pathways related to differentially expressed genes (DEGs) between PRCC cases with CENPA up-regulation and down-regulation. Results CENPA expression enhanced in PRCC tissues compared with healthy counterparts (P P P = 0.001). In the meantime, univariate as well as multivariate analysis showed an independent association of CENPA with overall survival (OS, P Conclusion CENPA expression increases within PRCC samples, which predicts dismal PRCC survival. CENPA may become a molecular prognostic marker and therapeutic target for PRCC patients.