Glutamyl-Prolyl tRNA Synthetase mRNA is Highly Expressed in Hepatocellular Carcinoma and May be Associated with Poor Prognosis
Abstract BackgroundAlthough glutamyl-prolyl tRNA synthetase (EPRS) mRNA is overexpressed and plays an important role in most tumors, its role in the development and progression of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) remains unclear. MethodsThe expression of EPRS in tumor and adjacent tissues was queried using TIMER and The Cancer Genome Atlas. The results were validated using the real-time reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction on RNA extracted from tumor and adjacent non-tumor samples from 10 HCC patients.ResultsUsing bioinformatics analysis, we found that EPRS mRNA was overexpressed in HCC tumor tissues, and the expression level of EPRS mRNA in The Cancer Genome Atlas database was significantly correlated with tumor size (p = 0.0010), histological grade (p = 0.0002), TNM stage (p = 0.0001), and vascular invasion (p = 0.0123) of HCC. The Kaplan-Meier survival analysis demonstrated that the expression of EPRS mRNA was associated with poor overall survival (p = 0.0004). Ten pairs of tumor and adjacent normal tissues were collected from patients with HCC, and the expression of EPRS mRNA was verified. The results showed that the EPRS mRNA level in HCC tissues was higher than that in paracancerous tissues (p = 0.0401). ConclusionOverexpression of EPRS mRNA may be associated with tumorigenesis and the progression of HCC.
