# A comprehensive study integrating bioinformatics analysis and experimental results on HROB as a potential biomarker for the prognosis of lung adenocarcinoma

## TL;DR

This study shows HROB is a potential biomarker for lung adenocarcinoma prognosis and suggests it could be a target for treatment.

## Contribution

The novel contribution is identifying HROB as an independent prognostic biomarker and potential therapeutic target in lung adenocarcinoma.

## Key findings

- HROB mRNA is significantly elevated in lung adenocarcinoma tissues compared to normal tissues.
- High HROB expression correlates with aggressive tumor traits and poor prognosis (hazard ratio 1.815).
- Knockdown of HROB reduces LUAD cell proliferation and invasion in vitro.

## Abstract

HROB, which is a DNA-binding protein linked to various cancers, has an unclear role in lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD). To explore its clinical significance and potential pathogenesis, we analysed RNA-seq data from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) and focused on differential expression, survival impact, functional pathways, and immune infiltration. Our findings revealed that HROB mRNA expression is significantly elevated in LUAD tissues compared with normal lung tissues. High HROB expression is associated with more aggressive tumour characteristics and poorer prognosis of LUAD, with a hazard ratio of 1.815 being observed (P = 0.004), thus suggesting that HROB could serve as an independent prognostic biomarker. The results of the functional enrichment analyses indicated that HROB is involved in cell cycle regulation pathways. Notably, immune infiltration analysis revealed a significant correlation between HROB expression and Th2 cell infiltration (R = 0.626). We also constructed a protein-protein interaction (PPI) network using the STRING database and identified six candidate small-molecule agents that may target HROB. In vitro experiments demonstrated that the knockdown of HROB expression reduces LUAD cell proliferation and invasion while inducing changes in cell cycle progression. Overall, our study establishes HROB as a critical biomarker for LUAD prognosis and highlights its potential role as a therapeutic target.

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1038/s41598-026-35798-7.