CDK3, CDK5 and CDK8 Proteins as Prognostic and Potential Biomarkers in Colorectal Cancer Patients

Introduction: In the cell cycle, cyclin-dependent kinases (CDKs) play a positive regulatory role, which is essential for normal cell growth, but the expression pattern and prognostic significance of the CDK family in colorectal cancer (CRC) have not been systematically investigated. Methods: In our study, we analyzed and visualized the expression of CDKs in CRC using TCGA, GEPIA, GSCALite, TIMER, HPA database, and R language CDKs risk model was constructed. Results: Overall, CDKs (CDK1, CDK2, CDK3, CDK4, CDK5, CDK6, CDK7 and CDK8) were differentially expressed between normal controls and colorectal cancer. Three CDKs genes (CDK3, CDK5 and CDK8) associated with prognosis were obtained by univariate and multivariate Cox and LASSO regression analysis. In CRC, CDK3, CDK5 and CDK8 are significantly associated with expression levels of recognized immune infiltrates. Conclusion: CDK3, CDK5 and CDK8 are potential diagnostic markers for CRC; meanwhile, CDK3, CDK5 and CDK8 are potential prognostic markers for CRC; studying the relationship between CDKs and tumor immunology may be helpful for immunotherapy of CRC, and more studies are needed to confirm these results.