Background: Emerging evidence has suggested a pro-oncogenic role of
calponin 1 (CNN1) in the initiation of a variety of
cancers. Despite this, CNN1 remains unknown in terms of its effects and mechanisms on angiogenesis, prognosis, and immunology in
cancer. Materials and Methods: The expression of CNN1 was extracted and analyzed using the TIMER, UALCAN, and GEPIA databases. Meanwhile, we analyzed the diagnostic value of CNN1 by using PrognoScan and Kaplan-Meier plots. To elucidate the value of CNN1 in
immunotherapy, we used the TIMER 2.0 database, TISIDB database, and Sangerbox database. Gene set enrichment analysis (GSEA) was used to analyze the expression pattern and bio-progression of CNN1 and the vascular endothelium
growth factor (
VEGF) in
cancer. The expressions of CNN1 and
VEGF in
gastric cancer were confirmed using immunohistochemistry. We used Cox regression analysis to investigate the association between pathological characteristics, clinical prognosis, and CNN1 and
VEGF expressions in patients with
gastric cancer. Results: CNN1 expression was higher in normal tissues than it was in
tumor tissues of most types of
cancers. However, the expression level rebounds during the development of
tumors. High levels of CNN1 indicate a poor prognosis for 11
tumors, which include stomach
adenocarcinoma (STAD). There is a relationship between CNN1 and tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs), and the marker genes NRP1 and TNFRSF14 of TILs are significantly related to CNN1 expression in
gastric cancers. The GSEA results confirmed the lower expression of CNN1 in
tumors when compared to normal tissues. However, CNN1 again showed an increasing trend during
tumor development. In addition, the results also suggest that CNN1 is involved in angiogenesis. The immunohistochemistry results validated the GSEA result (take
gastric cancer as an example). Cox analysis suggested that high CNN1 expression and high
VEGF expression are closely associated with poor clinical prognosis. Conclusion: Our study has shown that CNN1 expression is aberrantly elevated in various
cancers and positively correlates with angiogenesis and the immune checkpoint, contributing to
cancer progression and poor prognosis. These results suggest that CNN1 could serve as a promising candidate for pan-
cancer immunotherapy.