Bioinformatics analysis: relationship between adrenocortical carcinoma and KIFs

Adrenal cortical cancer has a relatively low incidence, but a dismal 5-year survival rate. Surgical intervention is the gold standard of care today. In spite of this progress, patients continue to have a dismal outlook. The results of this study demonstrate that kinin superfamily (KIF) has strong ties to many different types of cancers. However, their prognostic and immune cell infiltration of adrenocortical carcinoma (ACC) remain unclear. Multiple databases were searched for information on the transcription level of KIFs, its correlation with clinical data of ACC patients, patients’ overall survival (OS), first progression survival (FPS), and progression free interval (PFI). Its role and association with immune cells were also investigated. We observed an increase in the expression of KIF4A, KIF11, KIF20A, and KIF22. There was a strong correlation between them and the advancedness of ACC tumors. Parallel to this, KIFs are connected to the concepts of operating systems, distributed file systems, and partitioned file systems. Similarly, we found five key genes, PRC1, PLK1, KIF23, KIFC1, and KIF5A, through data analysis, all of which participate in multiple cellular pathways. Both KIF4A and KIF11 expression levels were marginally positively correlated with immune infiltration. Because KIF4A, KIF11, KIF20A, and KIF22 are involved in multiple ACC processes and can influence the onset and progression of ACC, they provide a mechanistically grounded framework for diagnosing and managing the disease.