Table 1_The crotonylation reader DPF2 promotes the development and progression of colon adenocarcinoma through cell-type-specific immune regulation and metabolic reprogramming.xlsx

Background<p>The crotonylation reader DPF2 has been implicated in tumor progression, but its role in colon adenocarcinoma (COAD), especially in cell-type-specific immune regulation and metabolic reprogramming, remains unclear.</p>Methods<p>We conducted an integrative multi-omics study combining genetic association analysis for COAD, public transcriptomic validation data, CRC-context single-cell and spatial transcriptomic datasets used as supportive expression evidence, circulating metabolite profiling, and clinical immunohistochemistry.

Two-sample Mendelian randomization was used to evaluate the association between genetically predicted expression of crotonylation-related genes and COAD risk, followed by validation and mechanistic analyses centered on DPF2.</p>Results<p>Among 16 crotonylation-related candidate genes with available cis-eQTL evidence, only DPF2 showed a significant positive association with COAD risk. DPF2 was consistently upregulated in GEO datasets, TCGA-COAD, and clinical samples, and high DPF2 expression was associated with advanced disease and poor overall survival.