Comprehensive analysis of the expression and prognosis for GPXs in cutaneous melanoma using bioinformatics analysis

• We propose novel method for the prognosis of the patients with cutaneous melanoma in clinical practice. • GPX family was explored to investigate the effect of the gene expressions in the patients with cutaneous melanoma. • GPXs may mediate cutaneous melanoma tumorigenesis by regulating Glutathione, and Arachidonic acid. • We provide a theoretical basis for targeted therapy and immunotherapy for patients with cutaneous melanoma. GPXs are a family of transcription factors encoded by a set of genes, which have been linked to tumor growth in a variety of cancers. GPXs are implicated in cutaneous melanoma carcinogenesis, according to growing experimental data. The expression patterns and prognostic values of eight GPXs were investigated in this study. The Oncomine, Gene Expression Profiling interactive Analysis (GEPIA), Human Protein Atlas, LinkedOmics, cBioPortal, GeneMANIA, and Enrichr databases were used to study the transcriptional and survival data of GPXs in patients with melanoma. We observed that GPX1, GPX4, GPX7, and GPX8 gene expressions were higher in cutaneous melanoma cancer tissues than in normal tissues, while GPX2 and GPX3 gene expressions were lower in cutaneous melanoma cancer tissues than in normal tissues according to immunohistochemical experimental results. High expression of GPX1, GPX7, and GPX8 were related with low overall survival in all of the patients with cutaneous melanoma, according to a survival study utilizing the LinkedOmics database. By modulating Glutathione, Arachidonic acid, Ferroptosis, and other signaling pathways, GPXs may play a potential role in cutaneous melanoma carcinogenesis. This research suggests that GPX2 is potential precision therapy targets for patients with cutaneous melanoma, and new bio-markers for cutaneous melanoma prognosis.