Fig 2: Hepcidin antimicrobial peptide (HAMP) highly expressed in both data sets (A): The box plot illustrates the difference in HAMP expression between tumor and normal samples. (B): The box plot illustrates the difference in HAMP expression between metastatic samples and non-metastatic CRC samples. (C): The box plot illustrating the difference in HAMP expression in CRC and non-cancerous cell lines. (D): The box plot illustrates the difference in HAMP expression between male and female samples. (E): The box plot illustrating the difference of HAMP expression in samples with different stages. (F): The box plot illustrating the difference of HAMP expression in samples with different MSI. (G–I): The Kaplan-Meier survival curves show that the OS (G), disease-specific survival (DSS) (H), and disease-free interval (DFI) (I) of the High HAMP group were significantly lower than those of the Low HAMP group. (J): The mRNA expression of HAMP in eight pairs of normal and tumor samples. (n = 8, *: p< 0.05) (K): The immunohistochemistry (IHC) of HAMP in normal and tumor samples.

Fig 3: Drug sensitivity analysis. (A–L): Box plots of sensitivity analysis for Axitinib (A), Cyclophosphamide (B), Dasatinib (C), Rapamycin (D), Ribociclib (E), Sorafenib (F), Zoledronate (G), SB216763 (H), Trametinib (I), PD0325901 (J), SB505124 (K) and SCH772984 (L) in patients at different HAMP expression group. (M): Radar plot of correlation between drug sensitivity and HAMP expression.

Fig 4: Immune-related analysis of HAMP in CRC patients (A): Box plot showing the relative proportion of immune cells in the different HAMP expression groups. (B): Radar chart illustrating the correlation between HAMP and different immune cells. (C–F): Box plots evaluating differences in the immune score (C), stromal score (D), ESTIMATE score (E), and tumor purity (F) in different HAMP expression groups. (G): Box plots evaluating the expression of immune checkpoint genes in different HAMP expression groups. (H): Violin plot showing the difference in values of IPS, IPS-CTLA4 blockers, IPS-PD1/PD-L1/PD-L2 blockers, and IPS-CTLA4 and PD1/PD-L1/PD-L2 blockers in different HAMP expression groups. (I–K): Box plots evaluating differences in TIDE score (I), MSI level (J), and Neoantigen level (K) in different HAMP expression groups. *P<0.05, **,P<0.01, ***P<0.001, ****P<0.0001.

Fig 5: HAMP promotes the migration of CRC cells. (A): Bar plots show the mRNA expression levels of HAMP in DLD-1 CRC cells in the control and si-HAMP groups (*: p< 0.05). (B, C): The crystal violet staining of migrated cells by transwell migration assay. Transwell migration assays show the effects of inhibition of HAMP on the migration of DLD-1 CRC cells. Data represent the means ± SEM, * p< 0.05. n = 3 independent experiments.