Bioinformatics based exploration on STAT3 driven molecular pathways and therapeutic targets in lung adenocarcinoma

Abstract

The research identified and analyzed genes related to the STAT3 pathway, which plays a crucial role in lung adenocarcinoma progression and treatment resistance. Thus, using BioPortal, Harmonizome, and KEGG PATHWAY several genes including HRAS, SMAD2, IQGAP1, and NFKB1 were considered as significantly co-expressed with STAT3. These genes were also reported to affect different cancer pathways, which are Ras, TGF-beta and NF-kappa B signaling all of which are core to cancer cell proliferation and survival. The pathway analysis of STAT3 target genes demonstrated that the TGF-beta signaling and MAPK signaling pathways are most relevant to lung cancer cases proving their key role in STAT3 mediated tumorigenesis. These findings also point to possible new therapeutic targets to improve the treatment of lung adenocarcinoma, because the pathways detected could represent avenues for molecular therapies that the current standard treatment of chemotherapy and radiation does not fully address, and are likely to provide better survival outcomes.