Leupaxin: A Prospective Therapeutic Target for Esophageal Squamous Carcinoma Treatment

Abstract Esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) is a prevalent malignant tumor. Immunotherapy research has led to advances in its treatment, but further research is necessary to identify its effective biomarkers. This study investigated the expression, pathological and prognostic significance, protein interactions, pathway enrichment, immune microenvironment, correlations between immune regulators and infiltration of immune cells, associations with drug resistance genes, and chemosensitivity of the immune-related biomarker leupaxin (LPXN) in ESCC using bioinformatics. The relative expression levels of LPXN mRNA and protein were evaluated and verified in both healthy and ESCC tissues using quantitative polymerase chain reaction and immunohistochemistry. The potential role of LPXN in ESCC was investigated using cell proliferation, apoptosis, clonogenic, and migration assays. The co-expression of LPXN and programmed cell death-ligand 1 (PD-L1) at the protein level in ESCC lines was determined by western blotting. We validated the expression of the LPXN gene in ESCC using clinical samples and investigated the correlation between LPXN gene expression and the efficacy of immune therapy for ESCC. Functional experiments demonstrated that inhibiting LPXN led to decreased cell proliferation, increased apoptosis, and impaired cell migration and invasion in ESCC cells. Our results indicate the involvement of the immune-related biomarker LPXN in the proliferation and migration processes of ESCC, establishing a novel framework for treatment.