自噬相关基因（ATG）参与自噬的激活，对癌症发展具有多效性作用，但ATG在结肠腺癌（COAD）中的表达水平的潜在价值尚不清楚。该研究旨在研究ATG表达水平的调节及其与COAD的临床和分子特征的关联。我们使用TCGAbiolinks和cBioPortal使用癌症基因组图谱（TCGA）-COAD项目的临床和分子表型以及RNA测序数据集。使用R中的DESeq2比较肿瘤和正常组织中的ATG表达水平。使用TIMER分析基因表达和免疫细胞浸润水平。与正常组织相比，ATG9B在COAD组织中具有最高的表达水平，并与COAD的晚期和不良预后有关。此外，ATG9B的表达与共识分子亚型4和染色体不稳定性呈正相关，但与肿瘤突变负荷呈负相关。此外，高ATG9B的表达水平与免疫细胞浸润减少和自然杀伤细胞激活基因的表达降低相关。ATG9B是一种不良预后的生物标志物，通过与免疫细胞浸润呈负相关，促进COAD的免疫逃逸。版权所有©2023 International Institute of Anticancer Research（George J. Delinasios博士），保留所有权利。

Autophagy-related genes (ATGs) are involved in autophagy activation, which has a pleiotropic role in cancer development. However, the potential value of ATG expression levels in colon adenocarcinoma (COAD) is unclear. This study aimed to examine the modulation of ATG expression levels and their association with clinical and molecular aspects of COAD.We used the clinical and molecular phenotypes and RNA sequencing datasets of the cancer genome atlas (TCGA)-COAD project using TCGAbiolinks and cBioPortal. Comparisons of ATG expression levels between tumor and normal tissues were performed using DESeq2 within R. Gene expression and immune cell infiltration levels were analyzed by TIMER.ATG9B had the highest expression levels among ATGs in COAD tissues compared to normal tissues and was related to advanced stage and poor prognosis in COAD. In addition, ATG9B expression was positively associated with the consensus molecular subtype 4 and chromosomal instability but negatively correlated with tumor mutation burden. Furthermore, high ATG9B expression levels were associated with low immune cell infiltration and decreased expression of natural killer cell activation genes.ATG9B is a poor prognostic biomarker driving immune evasion of COAD through negative correlation with immune cell infiltration.Copyright © 2023 International Institute of Anticancer Research (Dr. George J. Delinasios), All rights reserved.