Investigating the impact of Ras-related protein RAB7A on colon adenocarcinoma behavior and its clinical significance

Abstract

The Ras-related protein RAB7A has been implicated in the development and prognosis of various cancers. This study aims to investigate the prognostic significance of RAB7A in colon adenocarcinoma (COAD). We conducted a retrospective cohort study of COAD cases to assess RAB7A expression and its clinical relevance. The chi-square test was employed to establish associations between clinical features and RAB7A expression. Survival analyses, including Kaplan–Meier and Cox regression, were employed to evaluate the impact of RAB7A expression and clinical characteristics on COAD patient outcomes. Furthermore, we validated our clinical findings using The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) dataset. To elucidate the tumor-related role of RAB7A in COAD, we conducted cellular assays and mouse models. Elevated RAB7A expression in COAD tissues exhibited significant associations with tumor size, invasion depth, and lymph node metastasis (all p < 0.05). Univariate and multivariate analyses revealed that high RAB7A expression was significantly correlated with poorer overall survival. In vitro cellular assays, coupled with knockdown strategies, demonstrated that RAB7A promotes COAD tumor proliferation and invasion, a finding further substantiated by in vivo xenograft experiments. RAB7A may serve as a valuable biomarker and potential therapeutic target in the management of COAD.