A comprehensive study integrating bioinformatics analysis and experimental results on HROB as a potential biomarker for the prognosis of lung adenocarcinoma

HROB, which is a DNA-binding protein linked to various cancers, has an unclear role in lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD). To explore its clinical significance and potential pathogenesis, we analysed RNA-seq data from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) and focused on differential expression, survival impact, functional pathways, and immune infiltration. Our findings revealed that HROB mRNA expression is significantly elevated in LUAD tissues compared with normal lung tissues. High HROB expression is associated with more aggressive tumour characteristics and poorer prognosis of LUAD, with a hazard ratio of 1.815 being observed (P = 0.004), thus suggesting that HROB could serve as an independent prognostic biomarker. The results of the functional enrichment analyses indicated that HROB is involved in cell cycle regulation pathways. Notably, immune infiltration analysis revealed a significant correlation between HROB expression and Th2 cell infiltration (R = 0.626). We also constructed a protein-protein interaction (PPI) network using the STRING database and identified six candidate small-molecule agents that may target HROB. In vitro experiments demonstrated that the knockdown of HROB expression reduces LUAD cell proliferation and invasion while inducing changes in cell cycle progression. Overall, our study establishes HROB as a critical biomarker for LUAD prognosis and highlights its potential role as a therapeutic target.