Objective To analyze the expression and prognostic value of zinc finger CCCH domain-containing protein 12D (ZC3H12D) in lung adenocarcinoma and explore the relationship of ZC3H12D expression with tumor immune cell infiltration.

Methods The expression of ZC3H12D in lung adenocarcinoma was retrieved from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database, and the relationship between clinicopathological features and expression of ZC3H12D was discussed; the Kaplan-Meier method and univariate and multivariate regression analyses based on overall survival (OS) were used to assess the prognostic value of ZC3H12D in lung adenocarcinoma; the ZC3H12D-related protein-protein interaction network and signaling pathway were analyzed by using the GeneMANIA database; TIMER, TISIDB database and ssGSEA method were used to analyze the correlation between ZC3H12D expression and the level of immune cell infiltration in lung adenocarcinoma.

Results The expression of ZC3H12D in lung adenocarcinoma was significantly higher than that in adjacent normal tissues, and was significantly correlated with the clinicopathological features of patients with lung adenocarcinoma (P < 0.05), which indicated that high expression was more likely to predict poor prognosis. Protein-protein interaction network analysis revealed that ZC2H12A, ZC2H12B, N4BP1, ZC2H12C, KHNYN, RPGRIP1L, NYNRIN, OR2V2, GPR75, ZNF488, FCER2, ZNF280B, GRAP, P2RX5, SLAMF6, CD80, TCF7, AICDA, PARP15 and TUBB1 had significant interactions with ZC3H12D, and were mainly related to immune cell signaling pathways. The expression of ZC3H12D was positively correlated with tumor infiltrating immune cells (P < 0.05).

Conclusion ZC3H12D is an independent prognostic indicator with high expression in lung adenocarcinoma, which can affect the level of immune cell infiltration, and it may be used as a potential biomarker for diagnosis and prognosis of lung adenocarcinoma.