# Comprehensive pan-cancer analysis indicates key gene of p53-independent apoptosis is a novel biomarker for clinical application and chemotherapy in colorectal cancer

## TL;DR

This study shows that SLFN11, a gene involved in p53-independent apoptosis, is a potential biomarker for diagnosing and treating colorectal cancer and other cancers.

## Contribution

The study identifies SLFN11 as a novel biomarker for clinical application and chemotherapy in colorectal cancer.

## Key findings

- SLFN11 is downregulated in most cancers and is linked to DNA repair, the P53 pathway, and immune response.
- Dysregulated SLFN11 correlates with immune cell infiltration and can serve as a prognostic and predictive biomarker.
- Low SLFN11 expression is associated with imatinib resistance in colorectal cancer.

## Abstract

Schlafen11 (SLFN11) is a key gene in p53-independent apoptosis through ribosome stalling; however, systematic research has been conducted on its role in the tumor immune microenvironment, clinical application, and immunotherapy response across pan-cancer.

Public data were downloaded and multi-omics approaches were used to investigate the relationship between the expression level of SLFN11 and spatial position, biological function, immune landscape, and clinical application values. Cell Counting Kit-8 assay and quantitative real-time PCR were used to validate the expression level of SLFN11 and drug sensitivity in colorectal cancer samples.

Our study revealed that SLFN11 was downregulated in most cancers and correlated with DNA repair, the P53 pathway and immune response in tumor development progress by multi-omics analysis. Dysregulated SLFN11 is accompanied by several immune cell infiltrations and immune-related regulators, which can be a promising screening and prognostic biomarker and chemotherapy predictive target for clinical application. In vitro experiments proved that downregulated SLFN11 is a useful diagnostic biomarker and is linked to imatinib resistance in colorectal cancer.

The expression level of SLFN11 has a substantial promise as a valuable biomarker for diagnosis and a predictive indicator for assessing the effectiveness of chemotherapy and immunotherapy in human cancers, which deserves further additional basic experiments and clinical trials to prove.