TY - JOUR AB - Colorectal cancer (CRC) is the third most common cancer worldwide. At present, there are limited effective biomarkers of CRC. The present study aimed to identify potential signatures associated with the tumorigenesis and prognosis of CRC using publicly available databases, and further validate the identified biomarkers in CRC cell lines. Identification of differentially expressed mRNAs between CRC and paracancerous samples was conducted based on data from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA; 471 tumor samples and 41 normal samples). Survival analysis was performed to explore the prognostic value of troponin 2 (TNNT2) in the TCGA training set, which was further validated in an external dataset, GSE17531. Functional enrichment analysis was conducted to determine the possible biological functions using GSEA 3.0. Reverse transcription‑quantitative PCR (RT‑qPCR) and western blotting were utilized to detect the mRNA and protein expression levels of TNNT2 between CRC and normal colorectal cells. Immunohistochemistry was performed to detect the protein expression of TNNT2 in CRC and normal tissues. TNNT2 was significantly upregulated in CRC samples compared with adjacent normal samples in the TCGA dataset. Increased expression of TNNT2 was associated with inferior prognosis in the TCGA training dataset and GSE17531 validation dataset. Functional enrichment analysis revealed that the ErbB signaling pathway and glycerophospholipid metabolism pathway were significantly activated in the TNNT2 high expression group. Overexpression of TNNT2 mRNA and TNNT2 protein in CRC tumor cells was confirmed by RT‑qPCR and western blotting, respectively. Immunohistochemistry indicated increased protein expression levels of TNNT2 in CRC tissues in comparison with normal tissues. TNNT2 was associated with the tumorigenesis and prognosis of CRC, which may be useful for novel biomarker identification and targeted therapeutic strategy development. AD - Department of Medical Oncology, Fourth Hospital of Hebei Medical University, Shijiazhuang, Hebei 050011, P.R. China Department of Radiotherapy, Fourth Hospital of Hebei Medical University, Shijiazhuang, Hebei 050011, P.R. China Hebei Medical University, Shijiazhuang, Hebei 050011, P.R. China The Seven People's Hospital of Hebei Province, Dingzhou, Hebei 073000, P.R. China AU - Jing,Li AU - Feng,Li AU - Zhou,Zhiguo AU - Shi,Shuai AU - Deng,Ruoying AU - Wang,Zhicong AU - Zhang,Yi AU - Ren,Zhixue AU - Liu,Yibing DA - 2020/08/01 DO - 10.3892/or.2020.7637 EP - 636 IS - 2 JO - Oncol Rep KW - colorectal cancer troponin 2 gene tumorigenesis prognosis PY - 2020 SN - 1021-335X 1791-2431 SP - 628 ST - TNNT2 as a potential biomarker for the progression and prognosis of colorectal cancer T2 - Oncology Reports TI - TNNT2 as a potential biomarker for the progression and prognosis of colorectal cancer UR - https://doi.org/10.3892/or.2020.7637 VL - 44 ER -