IQGAP1 is positively correlated with PD-L1 and regulates its expression via mediating STAT proteins phosphorylation

IQ motif containing GTPase activating protein 1 (IQGAP1) is a scaffold protein to transduce multiple signals from the extracellular microenvironment. However, whether IQGAP1 mediates EGF-induced cancer progression has been not observed. In this research, we explored the immunological correlations of IQGAP1. IQGAP1 was up-regulated in most cancer and related to poor prognosis in ovarian cancer. In addition, IQGAP1 was correlated with immune-related genes and tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes. IQGAP1 was a novel EGF-response gene, which was up-regulated by EGF. As the downstream of EGFR, IQGAP1 mediated EGF-induced proliferation, migration and invasion of tumor cells and was essential for EGF-induced PD-L1 expression as well. Mechanically, IQGAP1 interacted with STATs and mediated their phosphorylation. Furthermore, Curcumin inhibited EGFR/IQGAP1 axis to down-regulate PD-L1 and suppress cancer progression. To sum up, IQGAP1 responds to EGF stimulation and mediates EGF-induced phosphorylation of STATs, which is a novel promising target for blocking the EGF-induced cancer progression.