KDELR1 expression in pan-cancer and its prognostic and immunomodulatory potential

ZHAO Hongyu; LIU Hao; LU Yuanyuan

doi:10.13276/j.issn.2097-1656.2026.04.004

Abstract：Objective To utilize public databases for bioinformatics mining to comprehensively elucidate the molecular characteristics and clinical significance of KDELR1 across pan-cancers.Methods Based on data from three databases,we analyzed KDELR1 expression differences in pan-cancers and evaluated the correlation between its expression levels,tumor stages,and patient prognosis using the GEPIA3,UALCAN,and Kaplan-Meier plotter platforms.The TIMER3 tool was employed to investigate the correlation between KDELR1 expression and the infiltration levels of CD8+T cells and NK cells.DNA methylation status was analyzed using SMART and MethSurv,while gene mutation profiles were deciphered via cBioPortal.Furthermore,a protein-protein interaction(PPI)network was constructed based on STRING.Taking colorectal cancer as a case study,co-expressed genes were screened using LinkedOmics to conduct functional enrichment analysis.Results KDELR1 was significantly upregulated in 27 types of cancer tissues(P<0.05).High KDELR1 expression levels were significantly associated with advanced clinical stages and poor prognosis in multiple cancers.Immune infiltration analysis revealed a significant negative correlation between KDELR1 expression and the abundance of CD8+T cell and NK cell infiltration within tumors.Epigenetic analysis indicated that the KDELR1 promoter region was in a hypomethylated state in colorectal cancer;specifically,hypomethylation at sites cg14525458 and cg26309311 was significantly associated with poor patient prognosis.PPI network and functional enrichment analyses suggested that KDELR1 was primarily involved in key biological processes such as ribosome biogenesis,oxidative phosphorylation,endoplasmic reticulum protein processing,and ECM-receptor interactions.Conclusion KDELR1 is universally overexpressed in pan-cancers.Its expression level is closely related to malignant tumor progression,poor prognosis,and suppression of CD8+T cell and NK cell infiltration.These findings suggest that KDELR1 holds promise as a pan-cancer prognostic biomarker and a potential therapeutic target for modulating the immune microenvironment.This study provides multi-omics evidence for further revealing the mechanisms of KDELR1 in tumorigenesis and development,as well as its potential for clinical translation.