scholarly journals Cyclin B1 acts as a tumor microenvironment-related cancer promoter and prognostic biomarker in hepatocellular carcinoma

2021 ◽  
Vol 49 (5) ◽  
pp. 030006052110162
Author(s):  
Yangming Hou ◽  
Xin Wang ◽  
Junwei Wang ◽  
Xuemei Sun ◽  
Xinbo Liu ◽  
...  

Objectives The present study aimed to develop a gene signature based on the ESTIMATE algorithm in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and explore possible cancer promoters. Methods The ESTIMATE and CIBERSORT algorithms were applied to calculate the immune/stromal scores and the proportion of tumor-infiltrating immune cells (TICs) in a cohort of HCC patients. The differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were screened by Cox proportional hazards regression analysis and protein–protein interaction (PPI) network construction. Cyclin B1 (CCNB1) function was verified using experiments. Results The stromal and immune scores were associated with clinicopathological factors and recurrence-free survival (RFS) in HCC patients. In total, 546 DEGs were up-regulated in low score groups, 127 of which were associated with RFS. CCNB1 was regarded as the most predictive factor closely related to prognosis of HCC and could be a cancer promoter. Gene Set Enrichment Analysis (GSEA) and CIBERSORT analyses indicated that CCNB1 levels influenced HCC tumor microenvironment (TME) immune activity. Conclusions The ESTIMATE signature can be used as a prognosis tool in HCC. CCNB1 is a tumor promoter and contributes to TME status conversion.

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Yangming Hou ◽  
Yingjuan Xu ◽  
Dequan Wu

AbstractThe infiltration degree of immune and stromal cells has been shown clinically significant in tumor microenvironment (TME). However, the utility of stromal and immune components in Gastric cancer (GC) has not been investigated in detail. In the present study, ESTIMATE and CIBERSORT algorithms were applied to calculate the immune/stromal scores and the proportion of tumor-infiltrating immune cell (TIC) in GC cohort, including 415 cases from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database. The differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were screened by Cox proportional hazard regression analysis and protein–protein interaction (PPI) network construction. Then ADAMTS12 was regarded as one of the most predictive factors. Further analysis showed that ADAMTS12 expression was significantly higher in tumor samples and correlated with poor prognosis. Gene Set Enrichment Analysis (GSEA) indicated that in high ADAMTS12 expression group gene sets were mainly enriched in cancer and immune-related activities. In the low ADAMTS12 expression group, the genes were enriched in the oxidative phosphorylation pathway. CIBERSORT analysis for the proportion of TICs revealed that ADAMTS12 expression was positively correlated with Macrophages M0/M1/M2 and negatively correlated with T cells follicular helper. Therefore, ADAMTS12 might be a tumor promoter and responsible for TME status and tumor energy metabolic conversion.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-12
Author(s):  
Li Luo ◽  
Rong Wang ◽  
Liaoyun Zhang ◽  
Piao Zhang ◽  
Dongmei Tian ◽  
...  

Background: Hepatocellular Carcinoma (HCC) is one of the highly malignant tumors threatening human health. The current research aimed to identify potential prognostic gene biomarkers for HCC. Materials and Methods: Microarray data of gene expression profiles of HCC from GEO were downloaded. After screening overlapping differentially expressed genes (DEGs) by R software. The STRING database and Cytoscape were used to identify hub genes. Cox proportional hazards regression was performed to screen the potential prognostic genes. Moreover, quantitative real-time PCR analyses were performed to detect the expression of ANLN in liver cancer cells and tissues. Finally, its possible pathways and functions were predicted using gene set enrichment analysis (GSEA). Result: A total of 566 DEGs were obtained from the overlapping analysis of three mRNA microarray dataset. Six key hub genes including RACGAP1, KIF20, DLGAP5, CDK1, BUB1B and ANLN, were associated with poor prognosis of patients with HCC. Higher expression of ANLN was associated with reduced overall survival and disease-free survival in patients with HCC. Multivariate analysis revealed that ANLN expression was an independent risk factor affecting overall survival. RT-PCR and Western blot analysis further demonstrated that ANLN expression was increased in HCC compared with patient-matched adjacent normal tissues. Notably, Gene enrichment analysis revealed that DEGs in ANLN-high patients were enriched in cell cycle, DNA duplication and p53 signaling pathway. Conclusion: The high expression of RACGAP1, KIF20, DLGAP5, CDK1, BUB1B and ANLN might be poor prognostic biomarkers in HCC patients, and may help to individualize the management of HCC.


PeerJ ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
pp. e11273
Author(s):  
Lei Yang ◽  
Weilong Yin ◽  
Xuechen Liu ◽  
Fangcun Li ◽  
Li Ma ◽  
...  

Background Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is considered to be a malignant tumor with a high incidence and a high mortality. Accurate prognostic models are urgently needed. The present study was aimed at screening the critical genes for prognosis of HCC. Methods The GSE25097, GSE14520, GSE36376 and GSE76427 datasets were obtained from Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO). We used GEO2R to screen differentially expressed genes (DEGs). A protein-protein interaction network of the DEGs was constructed by Cytoscape in order to find hub genes by module analysis. The Metascape was performed to discover biological functions and pathway enrichment of DEGs. MCODE components were calculated to construct a module complex of DEGs. Then, gene set enrichment analysis (GSEA) was used for gene enrichment analysis. ONCOMINE was employed to assess the mRNA expression levels of key genes in HCC, and the survival analysis was conducted using the array from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) of HCC. Then, the LASSO Cox regression model was performed to establish and identify the prognostic gene signature. We validated the prognostic value of the gene signature in the TCGA cohort. Results We screened out 10 hub genes which were all up-regulated in HCC tissue. They mainly enrich in mitotic cell cycle process. The GSEA results showed that these data sets had good enrichment score and significance in the cell cycle pathway. Each candidate gene may be an indicator of prognostic factors in the development of HCC. However, hub genes expression was weekly associated with overall survival in HCC patients. LASSO Cox regression analysis validated a five-gene signature (including CDC20, CCNB2, NCAPG, ASPM and NUSAP1). These results suggest that five-gene signature model may provide clues for clinical prognostic biomarker of HCC.


2021 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shenglan Huang ◽  
Dan Li ◽  
LingLing Zhuang ◽  
Liying Sun ◽  
Jianbing Wu

The actin-related protein 2/3 complex (Arp2/3) is a major actin nucleator that has been widely reported and plays an important role in promoting the migration and invasion of various cancers. However, the expression patterns and prognostic values of Arp2/3 subunits in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) remain unclear. In this study, The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and UCSC Xena databases were used to obtain mRNA expression and the corresponding clinical information, respectively. The differential expression and Arp2/3 subunits in HCC were analyzed using the “limma” package of R 4.0.4 software. The prognostic value of each subunit was evaluated using Kaplan–Meier survival analysis and Cox proportional hazards regression analyses. The results revealed that mRNA expression of Arp2/3 members (ACTR2, ACTR3, ARPC1A, APRC1B, ARPC2, ARPC3, ARPC4, ARPC5, and ARPC5L) was upregulated in HCC. Higher expression of Arp2/3 members was significantly correlated with worse overall survival (OS) and shorter progression-free survival (PFS) in HCC patients. Cox proportional hazards regression analyses demonstrated that ACTR3, ARPC2, and ARPC5 were independent prognostic biomarkers of survival in patients with HCC. The relation between tumor immunocyte infiltration and the prognostic subunits was determined using the TIMER 2.0 platform and the GEPIA database. Gene set enrichment analysis (GSEA) was performed to explore the potential mechanisms of prognostic subunits in the carcinogenesis of HCC. The results revealed that ACTR3, ARPC2, and ARPC5 were significantly positively correlated with the infiltration of immune cells in HCC. The GSEA results indicated that ACTR3, ARPC2, and ARPC5 are involved in multiple cancer-related pathways that promote the development of HCC. In brief, various analyses indicated that Arp2/3 complex subunits were significantly upregulated and predicted worse survival in HCC, and they found that ACTR3, ARPC2, and ARPC5 could be used as independent predictors of survival and might be applied as promising molecular targets for diagnosis and therapy of HCC in the future.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wei Yan ◽  
Dan-dan Wang ◽  
He-da Zhang ◽  
Jinny Huang ◽  
Jun-Chen Hou ◽  
...  

Abstract Background: The structural maintenance of chromosome (SMC) gene family, comprising 6 members, is involved in a wide spectrum of biological functions in many types of human cancers. However, there is little research on the expression profile and prognostic values of SMC genes in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Based on updated public resources and integrative bioinformatics analysis, we tried to determine the value of SMC gene expression in predicting the risk of developing HCC. Methods and materials: The expression data of SMC family members were obtained from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA). The prognostic values of SMC members and clinical features were identified. A gene set enrichment analysis (GSEA) was conducted to explore the mechanism underlying the involvement of SMC members in liver cancer. The associations between tumor immune infiltrating cells (TIICs) and the SMC family members were evaluated using the Tumor Immune Estimation Resource (TIMER) database. Results: Our analysis demonstrated that mRNA downregulation of SMC genes was common alteration in HCC patients. SMC1A, SMC2, SMC3, SMC4, SMC6 were upregulated in HCC. Upregulation of SMC2, SMC3 and SMC4, along with clinical stage, were associated with a poor HCC prognosis based on the results of univariate and multivariate Cox proportional hazards regression analyses. SMC2, SMC3 and SMC4 are also related to tumor purity and immune infiltration levels of HCC. The GSEA results indicated that SMC members participate in multiple biological processes underlying tumorigenesis. Conclusion: This study comprehensively analyzed the expression of SMC gene family members in patients with HCC. This can provide insights for further investigation of the SMC family members as potential targets in HCC and suggest that the use of SMC inhibitor targeting SMC2, SMC3 and SMC4 may be an effective strategy for HCC therapy.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
Author(s):  
He Ren ◽  
Wanjing Li ◽  
Xin Liu ◽  
Shuliang Li ◽  
Hao Guo ◽  
...  

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is a common malignant tumor with relatively high malignancy and rapid disease progression. Metabolism-related genes (MRGs) are involved in the pathogenesis of HCC. This study explored potential key MRGs and their effect on T-cell immune function in the tumor immune microenvironment to provide new insight for the treatment of HCC. Of 456 differentially expressed MRGs identified from TCGA database, 21 were screened by MCODE and cytoHubba algorithms. From the key module, GAD1, SPP1, WFS1, GOT2, EHHADH, and APOA1 were selected for validation. The six MRGs were closely correlated with survival outcomes and clinicopathological characteristics in HCC. Receiver operating characteristics analysis and Kaplan-Meier plots showed that these genes had good prognostic value for HCC. Gene set enrichment analysis of the six MRGs indicated that they were associated with HCC development. TIMER and GEPIA databases revealed that WFS1 was significantly positively correlated and EHHADH was negatively correlated with tumor immune cell infiltration and immune checkpoint expression. Finally, quantificational real-time polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) confirmed the expression of WFS1 and EHHADH mRNA in our own patients’ cohort samples and four HCC cell lines. Collectively, the present study identified six potential MRG biomarkers associated with the prognosis and tumor immune infiltration of HCC, thus providing new insight into the pathogenesis and treatment of HCC.


2021 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Liang-Hao Zhang ◽  
Long-Qing Li ◽  
Yong-Hao Zhan ◽  
Zhao-Wei Zhu ◽  
Xue-Pei Zhang

BackgroundIdentify immune-related gene pairs (IRGPs) signature related to the prognosis and immunotherapeutic efficiency for bladder cancer (BLCA) patients.Materials and MethodsOne RNA-seq dataset (The Cancer Genome Atlas Program) and two microarray datasets (GSE13507 and GSE31684) were included in this study. We defined these cohorts as training set to construct IRGPs and one immunotherapy microarray dataset as validation set. Identifying BLCA subclasses based on IRGPs by consensus clustering. The Lasso penalized Cox proportional hazards regression model was used to construct prognostic signature and potential molecular mechanisms were analyzed.ResultsThis signature can accurately predict the overall survival of BLCA patients and was verified in the immunotherapy validation set. IRGP-signatures can be used as independent prognostic risk factor in various clinical subgroups. Use the CIBERSORT algorithm to assess the abundance of infiltrating immune cells in each sample, and combine the results of the gene set enrichment analysis of a single sample to explore the differences in the immune microenvironment between IRPG signature groups. According to the results of GSVA, GSEA, and CIBERSORT algorithm, we found that IRGP is strikingly positive correlated with tumor microenvironment (TME) stromal cells infiltration, indicating that the poor prognosis and immunotherapy might be caused partly by enrichment of stromal cells. Finally, the results from the TIDE analysis revealed that IRGP could efficiently predict the response of immunotherapy in BLCA.ConclusionThe novel IRGP signature has a significant prognostic value for BLCA patients might facilitate personalized for immunotherapy.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hong Yu ◽  
Shao Wang ◽  
Tao Zhou ◽  
Jia Sun ◽  
Tian Qi ◽  
...  

Abstract Background: Even though treatment outcomes for hepatocellular carcinoma patients have significantly improved, prognostic clinical evaluation remains a substantial challenge due to the heterogeneity and complexity of cancer. Accumulating evidence has revealed that the tumor immune microenvironment is critical for progression and prognosis of hepatocellular carcinoma. A powerful predictive model could assist physicians to better monitor patient treatment outcomes and improve overall survival rates. Therefore, we introduced tumor immune-related genes into a model that could be used for patient risk classification. Results: First, the Single-sample gene set enrichment analysis (ssGSEA) and Weighted gene co-expression networks construction (WGCNA) methods were applied to identify highly associated immunity genes. Following this, a multi-immune-related gene-based signature determined by The least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) Cox regression analysis was used to determine risk stratification. In addition, this predictive model was evaluated according to its performance as a prognostic model in the training and testing datasets. Furthermore, tumor mutation burden and biological enrichment analysis were applied to reveal the potential mechanisms through which the gene signature functions. Conclusion: In conclusion, our four-gene signature model may be clinically applied in hepatocellular carcinoma patients at high risk of mortality for personalized therapy.


2020 ◽  
Vol 2020 ◽  
pp. 1-19
Author(s):  
Yuqin Tang ◽  
Yongqiang Zhang ◽  
Xun Hu

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is a common malignant cancer with poor survival outcomes, and hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection is most likely to contribute to HCC. But the molecular mechanism remains obscure. Our study intended to identify the candidate potential hub genes associated with the carcinogenesis of HBV-related HCC (HBV-HCC), which may be helpful in developing novel tumor biomarkers for potential targeted therapies. Four transcriptome datasets (GSE84402, GSE25097, GSE94660, and GSE121248) were used to screen the 309 overlapping differentially expressed genes (DEGs), including 100 upregulated genes and 209 downregulated genes. Gene Ontology (GO) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) enrichment were used to explore the biological function of DEGs. A PPI network based on the STRING database was constructed and visualized by the Cytoscape software, consisting of 209 nodes and 1676 edges. Then, we recognized 17 hub genes by CytoHubba plugin, which were further validated on additional three datasets (GSE14520, TCGA-LIHC, and ICGC-LIRI-JP). The diagnostic effectiveness of hub genes was assessed with receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis, and all hub genes displayed good performance in discriminating TNM stage I patient samples and normal tissue ones. For prognostic analysis, two prognostic key genes (TOP2A and KIF11) out of the 17 hub genes were screened and used to develop a prognostic signature, which showed good potential for overall survival (OS) stratification of HBV-HCC patients. Gene Set Enrichment Analysis (GSEA) was performed in order to better understand the function of this prognostic gene signature. Finally, the miRNA–mRNA regulatory relationships of all hub genes in human liver were predicted using miRNet. In conclusion, the current study gives further insight on the pathogenesis and carcinogenesis of HBV-HCC, and the identified DEGs provide a promising direction for improving the diagnostic, prognostic, and therapeutic outcomes of HBV-HCC.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Guangdong Liu ◽  
Danian Liu ◽  
Jingjing Huang ◽  
Jianxin Li ◽  
Chuang Wang ◽  
...  

Abstract BackgroundLong intergenic non-coding RNAs (lincRNAs) are capable of regulating several tumours, while competitive endogenous RNA (ceRNA) networks are of great significance in revealing the biological mechanism of tumours. Currently, there is a dearth of studies on the ceRNA network of lincRNAs in glioblastoma (GBM), which we aimed to assess in the present study. MethodsWe obtained GBM and normal brain tissue samples from TCGA, GTEx, and GEO databases, and performed weighted gene co-expression network analysis and differential expression analysis on all lincRNA and mRNA data. Subsequently, we predicted the interaction between lincRNAs, miRNAs, and target mRNAs. Univariate and multivariate Cox regression analyses were performed on the mRNAs using CGGA data, and a Cox proportional hazards regression model was constructed. ResultsAccording to the Cox model, we assembled a ceRNA network consisting of 23 lincRNAs, 14 miRNAs, and 13 mRNAs. Gene Set Enrichment Analysis was carried out on four lincRNAs with obvious differential expressions and relatively few studies in GBM. ConclusionWe identified four lincRNAs that have the most research values for GBM and obtained the ceRNA network. Our research is expected to facilitate in-depth understanding and study of the molecular mechanism of GBM, and provide new insights into targeted therapy and prognosis of the tumour.


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