VTA1 and breast cancer: a potential indicator for diagnostic and prognostic evaluation

Objectives Vacuolar protein sorting-associated protein VTA1 homolog (VTA1) encodes a factor involved in multivesicular body trafficking. This investigation sought to determine if VTA1 might function as a diagnostic indicator, a standalone prognostic element, and a potential therapeutic target in breast cancer. Methods We performed a pan-cancer analysis of VTA1 expression using TCGA data from 33 cancer types and assessed immune infiltration with TIMER2.0. Breast cancer data from TCGA and Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) database were collected to complete the difference analysis, clinical feature correlation, prognosis analysis, enrichment analysis, and tumor microenvironment score analysis of VTA1 in BRCA. The presence of VTA1 in BRCA cells was verified by Reverse Transcription Quantitative Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-qPCR), Western Blot (WB), and Immunohistochemistry (IHC). Results VTA1 expression was markedly elevated in breast cancer. Elevated levels were significantly linked to worse overall survival (OS). (hazard ratio [HR] = 1.791, 95 % CI: 1.206–2.659, p<0.01) and recurrence-free survival (RFS), indicating that VTA1 is an independent prognostic factor. In the tumor immune microenvironment, high VTA1 expression correlated with increased infiltration of myeloid and resting immune cells but decreased effector/activated immune cells, suggesting poor prognosis. Conclusions VTA1 is a promising prognostic indicator for various cancers, particularly in breast cancer. The expression of VTA1 is markedly elevated in breast cancer tissues relative to the adjacent normal tissues. Clinical analyses further suggest that VTA1 functions as an independent indicator associated with unfavorable outcomes in breast cancer. These findings imply that VTA1 may serve as a promising biomarker for diagnosis, therapeutic guidance, and survival prediction.