TRPM2 (transient receptor potential melastatin-2), a Ca2+ permeable, non-selective
cation channel, is highly expressed in
cancers and regulates
tumor cell migration, invasion, and proliferation. However, no study has yet demonstrated the association of TRPM2 with the prognosis of
cancer patients or
tumor immune infiltration, and the possibility and the clinical basis of TRPM2 as a prognostic marker in
cancers are yet unknown. In the current study, we first explored the correlation between the
mRNA level of TRPM2 and the prognosis of patients with different
cancers across public databases. Subsequently, the
Tumor Immune Estimation Resource (TIMER) platform and the TISIDB website were used to assess the correlation between TRPM2 and
tumor immune cell infiltration level. We found that 1) the level of TRPM2 was significantly elevated in most
tumor tissues relative to normal tissues; 2) TRPM2 upregulation was significantly associated with adverse clinical characteristics and poor survival of kidney renal clear cell
carcinoma (KIRC) patients; 3) the level of TRPM2 was positively related to immune cell infiltration. Moreover, TRPM2 was closely correlated to the gene markers of diverse immune cells; 4) a high TRPM2 expression predicted worse prognosis in KIRC based on different enriched immune cell cohorts; and 5) TRPM2 was mainly implemented in the T-cell activation process indicated by Gene Ontology (GO) function and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathway enrichment analysis. In conclusion, TRPM2 can serve as a marker to predict the prognosis and immune infiltration in KIRC through the regulation of T-cell activation. The current data may provide additional information for further studies surrounding the function of TRPM2 in KIRC.