Spalt-like transcription factors (SALLs) are evolutionarily conserved proteins that participate in embryonic development. Four members of the SALL family, SALL1, SALL2, SALL3, and SALL4, are involved in cellular apoptosis, angiogenesis, invasion, and metastasis of tumors. We used the TCGA pan-cancer data to conduct a comprehensive analysis of SALL genes. High heterogeneity in the expression of these genes was observed across various cancers, SALL1 and SALL2 were downregulated, whereas SALL4 was upregulated. Moreover, we verified that SALL4 was commonly associated with survival disadvantage, whereas others were linked to a better prognosis. In renal cancer, SALL1, SALL2, and SALL3 showed downregulation, suggesting that they acted as tumor suppressors. Furthermore, SALLs were associated with immune infiltrate subtypes, with a close association between different degrees of infiltration of stromal cells and immune cells. DNA and RNA analyses in different tumors suggested different degrees of negative or positive correlation with tumor stem cell-like features. Finally, we revealed that SALLs were related to cancer cell resistance. Our results highlight the necessity to further study each SALL gene as a separate entity in specific types of cancer. Although this article showed that SALLs could be promising targets for cancer therapy, it needs further studies to validate the findings.

Spalt 样转录因子 ( SALL ) 是参与胚胎发育的进化上保守的蛋白质。SALL家族的四个成员SALL1、SALL2、SALL3和SALL4参与细胞凋亡、血管生成、侵袭和肿瘤转移。我们使用 TCGA 泛癌数据对 SALL 基因进行了综合分析。在各种癌症中观察到这些基因表达的高度异质性，SALL1和SALL2下调，而SALL4上调。此外，我们验证了SALL4通常与生存不利有关，而其他则与更好的预后有关。在肾癌中，SALL1、SALL2和SALL3显示下调，表明它们充当肿瘤抑制因子。此外，SALL与免疫浸润亚型相关，基质细胞和免疫细胞的不同程度浸润之间存在密切关联。不同肿瘤中的 DNA 和 RNA 分析表明与肿瘤干细胞样特征存在不同程度的负相关或正相关。最后，我们发现SALL与癌细胞抵抗有关。我们的结果强调了进一步研究每个SALL的必要性基因作为特定类型癌症的独立实体。尽管这篇文章表明SALL可能是癌症治疗的有希望的靶点，但还需要进一步的研究来验证这些发现。