Abstract Background Colon adenocarcinoma (COAD) is increasingly prevalent among patients under 50 years old, and the 5-year survival rate for patients with metastasis is less than 20%. Identifying significant biomarkers and therapeutic targets is crucial. We investigated the expression of LRP2 in COAD and its prognostic value utilizing single-cell sequencing and transcriptomics datasets, which was conducted preliminary validation at the patient samples and cellular levels as well. Methods Based on differential gene expression of tumor samples and normal tissues in The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA), we performed consensus clustering, univariate and multivariate Cox regression analysis applying 1,234 mitochondrial metabolism-related genes (MMRGs) to identify some essential genes associated with poor prognosis in COAD patients. We validated survival outcome and biological function of the target gene leveraging single-cell sequencing and transcriptomics datasets from Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO), and evaluated the value of the target gene in the clinical pathology stage of COAD patients. Simultaneously, the expression levels of critical gene were detected in the diverse tissues of COAD by immunohistochemistry (IHC) staining. Transcriptomics data was continuously implemented to compare the discrepancy between the expression levels of the target gene and somatic mutation burden, inspecting the key pathways of the target gene by gene set enrichment analysis (GSEA) and examining its drug sensitivity synthetically in the CellMiner databases. The proliferative capacity augmented in LRP2-overexpressed colon cancer cells was determined employing cell counting kit-8 (CCK-8) and flow cytometry assays. Results LRP2 served as a key mitochondrial metabolism-related gene was assessed clinical prognosis in COAD patients according to the TCGA database. High expression of LRP2 was prominently associated with poor prognosis in COAD patients (P