L1TD1 - a prognostic marker for colon cancer

Abstract Background Prognostic markers specific to a particular cancer type can assist in the evaluation of survival probability of patients and help clinicians to assess the available treatment modalities. Methods Gene expression data was analyzed from three independent colon cancer microarray gene expression data sets (N = 1052). Survival analysis was performed for the three data sets, stratified by the expression level of the LINE-1 type transposase domain containing 1 (L1TD1). Correlation analysis was performed to investigate the role of the interactome of L1TD1 in colon cancer patients. Results We found L1TD1 as a novel positive prognostic marker for colon cancer. Increased expression of L1TD1 associated with longer disease-free survival in all the three data sets. Our results were in contrast to a previous study on medulloblastoma, where high expression of L1TD1 was linked with poor prognosis. Notably, in medulloblastoma L1TD1 was co-expressed with its interaction partners, whereas our analysis revealed lack of co-expression of L1TD1 with its interaction partners in colon cancer. Conclusions Our results identify increased expression of L1TD1 as a prognostic marker predicting longer disease-free survival in colon cancer patients.