Fig. 7: LAPTM4B as a potential therapeutic target in NSCLC through its regulatory function on ferroptosis.

A Expression levels (log₂^{(TPM + 1)}) of LAPTM4B and SCL7A11 in NSCLC tumor tissues and adjacent normal tissues from the combined analysis of TCGA. Data presented as mean ± SEM, p < 0.05. “Normal tissues” represent “adjacent normal tissues”. B Mining and analysis of the association between LAPTM4B and central regulators of ferroptosis from the TCGA database. Correlation visualized by a heat map. “Red” indicates positive correlation, “Blue” indicates negative correlation. C Expression levels of LAPTM4B and SLC7A11 in different stages of NSCLC patients obtained from GEO (GSE:31210). D Overall survival probability of NSCLC patients based on LAPTM4B and SLC7A11 expression from the combined analysis of GEO (GSE:30219). E Immunohistochemistry (IHC) staining of LAPTM4B and SLC7A11 protein levels in tumor tissue and adjacent normal tissues from collected NSCLC surgery samples. Left panel: representative images from H&E staining and IHC staining. Right panel: quantification of IHC results. Data presented as mean ± SEM, normalized to “Normal”. For Ki67 expression, p(Normal, Tumor) = 1.13E−18. For LAPTM4B expression, p(Normal, Tumor) = 5.69E−13. For SLC7A11 expression, p(Normal, Tumor) = 0.0001. Scale bar: 100 µm. F Correlation between expression levels of LAPTM4B and SLC7A11 in patients’ tissue samples (R = 0.4652, p = 0.022), based on the results from IHC staining. The red color represents “NSCLC tumor tissue”, blue color represents “adjacent normal tissue”. (G). Western blotting analysis of LAPTM4B and SLC7A11 protein levels in tumor tissue and adjacent normal tissues from collected NSCLC surgery samples. H Quantification of results in (G). N = 3 technical repeats, mean ± SEM, normalized to “Normal”. For LAPTM4B expression, p(Normal, Tumor) = 0.001. For SLC7A11 expression, p(Normal, Tumor) = 0.0396. T: Tumor tissue; N: Adjacent normal tissue. I Correlation between expression levels of LAPTM4B and SLC7A11 in patients’ tissue samples (R = 0.554, p = 0.0113), based on the results from Western blotting. The red color represents “NSCLC tumor tissue”, blue color represents “adjacent normal tissue”. J Levels of malondialdehyde (MDA) in tumor tissue and adjacent normal tissues from collected NSCLC surgery samples. Quantification of n = 3 experiments, mean ± SEM, normalized to “Normal”. p(Normal, Tumor) = 0.0028.