The
pituitary tumor-transforming gene 1 (PTTG1), also known as
Securin, is considered an oncogene. This study aimed to investigate the role of PTTG1 in
clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC) using in silico bioinformatics approaches. A pan-
cancer analysis using The
Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) data indicated that among all
cancer types copy number amplification of PTTG1 gene was most frequently found in ccRCC. However, amplification of PTTG1 gene copy number did not correlate with the increase of
mRNA level in ccRCC, and did not predict the patients' overall survival. Instead, ccRCC was correlated with overexpression of PTTG1
mRNA, and its expression level was stage-dependent increased in
cancer patients. An outlier analysis using the Oncomine database suggested that PTTG1
mRNA expression served as a good
biomarker for ccRCC. Pathway analysis for upregulated genes enriched in PTTG1-high expressing ccRCC patients found that PTTG1 overexpression was associated with mitotic defects. Mining
drug sensitivity data using the
Cancer Therapeutics Response Portal (CTRP) discovered that PTTG1-high expressing ccRCC cell lines were susceptible to a Rac1 (
Ras-related C3 botulinum toxin substrate 1) inhibitor
NSC23766. Therefore, this study provides an in silico insight into the role of PTTG1 in ccRCC, and repurposes the Rac1 inhibitor
NSC23766 for treating PTTG1-high expressing ccRCC.