A pan cancer multi omics analysis of OLR1 reveals its association with tumor immunity metabolic pathways and clinical prognosis

Oxidized low-density lipoprotein receptor 1 (OLR1) is a key regulator of lipid metabolism and has been implicated in cancer biology. However, its role across multiple tumor types, particularly within the tumor immune microenvironment, remains unclear. This study aimed to systematically investigate the multi-omics landscape and spatial characteristics of OLR1 across cancers. Pan-cancer multi-omics data from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) were analyzed using public databases and R-based approaches to evaluate OLR1 expression patterns, prognostic significance, genomic alterations, DNA methylation, and immune infiltration. Single-cell RNA sequencing data were used to characterize cell-type-specific expression and intercellular communication. In addition, spatial transcriptomics datasets were processed using Scanpy to explore the spatial distribution of OLR1 and its co-localization with immune cell populations. OLR1 exhibited significantly dysregulated expression across multiple cancers, with upregulation in tumors such as BLCA, BRCA, and CHOL, and downregulation in LUAD and LUSC. Its expression was significantly associated with overall survival and progression-free interval in a cancer type–dependent manner. Genomic analyses indicated that single nucleotide variations were the predominant mutation type, and OLR1 expression showed significant negative correlations with DNA methylation in several cancers. Functional enrichment analysis revealed that OLR1 expression was positively associated with metabolic pathways and negatively associated with immune-related processes. Immune infiltration analysis demonstrated significant correlations between OLR1 expression and multiple immune cell types, particularly macrophages and B cells. At the single-cell level, OLR1 expression was predominantly enriched in myeloid cell populations and associated with intercellular communication networks. Spatial transcriptomic analysis further showed that OLR1 exhibited heterogeneous spatial distribution patterns across tumors and displayed significant co-localization with the macrophage-associated marker MSR1 in most cancer samples. This integrative multi-omics and spatial transcriptomics analysis demonstrates that OLR1 is aberrantly expressed across cancers and is associated with prognosis, molecular alterations, and the tumor immune microenvironment. Its preferential enrichment in myeloid cell populations and spatial association with macrophage niches highlight its potential relevance in tumor-associated immune dynamics.