Expression of NOTCH receptors and ligands and prognosis of hepatocellular carcinoma

2020 ◽  
Vol 14 (17) ◽  
pp. 1631-1639
Author(s):  
Binyu Zhao ◽  
Shanshan Hu ◽  
Qingqing Xiao ◽  
Sinuo Fan ◽  
Xizhi Yu ◽  
...  

Aim: To elucidate potential prognostic significance of NOTCH receptor and ligand expression in hepatocellular carcinoma. Materials & methods: NOTCH receptors and ligands were divided into increased and decreased expression groups by X-tile program. The association between NOTCH receptors/ligands and prognosis was analyzed by Kaplan–Meier method and log-rank test. Gene set enrichment analysis was performed to explore NOTCH receptors/ligands-related pathways via gsea-3.0. Results: DLL3 and DLL4 were independent prognostic factors for overall survival. Further studies showed that only DLL3 was significantly associated with tumor, node, metastasis stage. Gene set enrichment analysis analysis demonstrated that retinol metabolism, drug metabolism cytochrome P450 and tryptophan metabolism were significantly enriched in DLL3 expression phenotype. Conclusion: We demonstrate that DLL3 may be a prognostic biomarker in hepatocellular carcinoma.

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
Author(s):  
Junyu Huo ◽  
Liqun Wu ◽  
Yunjin Zang

BackgroundThe high mutation rate of TP53 in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) makes it an attractive potential therapeutic target. However, the mechanism by which TP53 mutation affects the prognosis of HCC is not fully understood.Material and ApproachThis study downloaded a gene expression profile and clinical-related information from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database and the international genome consortium (ICGC) database. We used Gene Set Enrichment Analysis (GSEA) to determine the difference in gene expression patterns between HCC samples with wild-type TP53 (n=258) and mutant TP53 (n=116) in the TCGA cohort. We screened prognosis-related genes by univariate Cox regression analysis and Kaplan–Meier (KM) survival analysis. We constructed a six-gene prognostic signature in the TCGA training group (n=184) by Lasso and multivariate Cox regression analysis. To assess the predictive capability and applicability of the signature in HCC, we conducted internal validation, external validation, integrated analysis and subgroup analysis.ResultsA prognostic signature consisting of six genes (EIF2S1, SEC61A1, CDC42EP2, SRM, GRM8, and TBCD) showed good performance in predicting the prognosis of HCC. The area under the curve (AUC) values of the ROC curve of 1-, 2-, and 3-year survival of the model were all greater than 0.7 in each independent cohort (internal testing cohort, n = 181; TCGA cohort, n = 365; ICGC cohort, n = 229; whole cohort, n = 594; subgroup, n = 9). Importantly, by gene set variation analysis (GSVA) and the single sample gene set enrichment analysis (ssGSEA) method, we found three possible causes that may lead to poor prognosis of HCC: high proliferative activity, low metabolic activity and immunosuppression.ConclusionOur study provides a reliable method for the prognostic risk assessment of HCC and has great potential for clinical transformation.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ninghua Yao ◽  
Wei Jiang ◽  
Jie Sun ◽  
Chen Yang ◽  
Wenjie Zheng ◽  
...  

Abstract Background Epigenetic reprogramming plays an important role in the occurrence, development, and prognosis of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). DNA methylation is a key epigenetic regulatory mechanism, and DNA methyltransferase 1 (DNMT1) is the major enzyme responsible for maintenance methylation. Nevertheless, the role and mechanism of DNMT1 in HCC remains poorly defined. Methods In the current study, we conducted pan-cancer analysis for DNMT1’s expression and prognosis using The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) data set. We conducted gene Set Enrichment Analysis (GSEA) between high-and-low DNMT1 expression groups to identify DNMT1-related functional significance. We also investigated the relationship between DNMT1 expression and tumor immune microenvironment, including immune cell infiltration and the expression of immune checkpoints. Through a combination series of computer analyses (including expression analyses, correlation analyses, and survival analyses), the noncoding RNAs (ncRNAs) that contribute to the overexpression of DNMT1 were ultimately identified. Results We found that DNMT1 was upregulated in 16 types of human carcinoma including HCC, and DNMT1 might be a biomarker predicting unfavorable prognosis in HCC patients. DNMT1 mRNA expression was statistically associated with age, histological grade, and the level of serum AFP. Moreover, DNMT1 level was significantly and positively linked to tumor immune cell infiltration, immune cell biomarkers, and immune checkpoint expression. Meanwhile, Gene Set Enrichment Analysis (GSEA) revealed that high-DNMT1 expression was associated with epithelial mesenchymal transition (EMT), E2F target, G2M checkpoint, and inflammatory response. Finally, through a combination series of computer analyses the SNHG3/hsa-miR-148a-3p/DNMT1 axis was confirmed as the potential regulatory pathway in HCC. Conclusion SNHG3/miR-148a-3p axis upregulation of DNMT1 may be related to poor outcome, tumor immune infiltration, and regulated malignant properties in HCC.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tian-Hao Li ◽  
Cheng Qin ◽  
Bang-Bo Zhao ◽  
Hong-Tao Cao ◽  
Xiao-Ying Yang ◽  
...  

Methyltransferase-like 18 (METTL18), a METTL family member, is abundant in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Studies have indicated the METTL family could regulate the progress of diverse malignancies while the role of METTL18 in HCC remains unclear. Data of HCC patients were acquired from the cancer genome atlas (TCGA) and gene expression omnibus (GEO). The expression level of METTL18 in HCC patients was compared with normal liver tissues by Wilcoxon test. Then, the logistic analysis was used to estimate the correlation between METTL18 and clinicopathological factors. Besides, Gene Ontology (GO), Gene Set Enrichment Analysis (GSEA), and single-sample Gene Set Enrichment Analysis (ssGSEA) were used to explore relevant functions and quantify the degree of immune infiltration for METTL18. Univariate and Multivariate Cox analyses and Kaplan–Meier analysis were used to estimate the association between METTL18 and prognosis. Besides, by cox multivariate analysis, a nomogram was conducted to forecast the influence of METTL18 on survival rates. METTL18-high was associated with Histologic grade, T stage, Pathologic stage, BMI, Adjacent hepatic tissue inflammation, AFP, Vascular invasion, and TP53 status (P < 0.05). HCC patients with METTL18-high had a poor Overall-Survival [OS; hazard ratio (HR): 1.87, P < 0.001), Disease-Specific Survival (DSS, HR: 1.76, P = 0.015), and Progression-Free Interval (PFI, HR: 1.51, P = 0.006). Multivariate analysis demonstrated that METTL18 was an independent factor for OS (HR: 2.093, P < 0.001), DSS (HR: 2.404, P = 0.015), and PFI (HR: 1.133, P = 0.006). Based on multivariate analysis, the calibration plots and C-indexes of nomograms showed an efficacious predictive effect for HCC patients. GSEA demonstrated that METTL18-high could activate G2M checkpoint, E2F targets, KRAS signaling pathway, and Mitotic Spindle. There was a positive association between the METTL18 and abundance of innate immunocytes (T helper 2 cells) and a negative relation to the abundance of adaptive immunocytes (Dendritic cells, Cytotoxic cells etc.). Finally, we uncovered knockdown of METTL18 significantly suppressed the proliferation, invasion, and migration of HCC cells in vitro. This research indicates that METTL18 could be a novel biomarker to evaluate HCC patients’ prognosis and an important regulator of immune responses in HCC.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yangjie Wu ◽  
Aitao Nai ◽  
Guicheng He ◽  
Fei Xiao ◽  
Zhimin Li ◽  
...  

Abstract Background: Dihydropyrimidinase Like 2 (DPYSL2) has been linked to tumor metastasis. However, the function of DPSY2L in lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD) is yet to be explored.Methods: Herein, we assessed DPYSL2 expression in various tumor types via online databases such as Oncomine and Tumor Immune Estimation Resource (TIMER). Further, we verified the low protein and mRNA expressions of DPYSL2 in LUAD via the ULCAN, The TCGA and GEPIA databases. We applied the ROC curve to examine the role of DPYSL2 in diagnosis. The prognostic significance of DPYSL2 was established through the Kaplan-Meier plotter and the Cox analyses (univariate and multivariate). TIMER was used to explore DPYSL2 expression and its connection to immune infiltrated cells. Through Gene Set Enrichment Analysis, the possible mechanism of DPYSL2 in LUAD was investigated. Results: In this study, database analysis revealed lower DPYSL2 expression in LUAD than in normal tissues. The ROC curve suggested that expression of DPYSL2 had high diagnostic efficiency in LUAD. The DPYSL2 expression had an association with the survival time of LUAD patients in the Kaplan-Meier plotter and the Cox analyses. The results from TIMER depicted a markedly positive correlation of DPYSL2 expression with immune cells infiltrated in LUAD, such as macrophages, dendritic cell, CD4+ T cells, and neutrophils. Additionally, many gene markers for the immune system had similar positive correlations in the TIMER analysis. In Gene Set Enrichment Analysis, six immune-related signaling pathways were associated with DPYSL2.Conclusions: In summary, DPYSL2 is a novel biomarker with diagnostic and prognostic potential for LUAD as well as an immunotherapy target.


2022 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fahui Liu ◽  
Jiadong Liang ◽  
Puze Long ◽  
Lilan Zhu ◽  
Wanyun Hou ◽  
...  

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the common malignant tumors. The prognosis and five-year survival rate of HCC are not promising due to tumor recurrence and metastasis. Exploring markers that contribute to the early diagnosis of HCC, markers for prognostic evaluation of HCC patients, and effective targets for treating HCC patients are in the spotlight of HCC therapy. Zinc Finger CCHC-Type Containing 17 (ZCCHC17) encodes the RNA binding protein ZCCHC17, but its role in HCC is still unclear. Here, 90 paraffin-embedded specimens combined with bioinformatics were used to comprehensively clarify the value of ZCCHC17 in the diagnosis and prognosis of HCC and its potential functions. Paraffin-embedded specimens were used to assess ZCCHC17 protein expression and its correlation with prognosis in 90 HCC patients. the public data sets of HCC patients from TCGA, ICG, and GEO databases were also used for further analysis. It was found that protein and mRNA levels of ZCCHC17 in HCC tissues were significantly higher than those in normal tissues. The abnormally high expression may be related to the abnormal DNA methylation of ZCCHC17 in tumor tissues. The high expression of ZCCHC17 is related to AFP, histologic grade, tumor status, vascular invasion, and pathological stage. Multi-data set analysis showed that patients with high ZCCHC17 expression had a worse prognosis, and multivariate cox regression analysis showed an independent prognostic significance of ZCCHC17. The results of functional analysis, including Gene Ontology (GO), Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) and Gene Set Enrichment Analysis (GSEA), indicate that ZCCHC17 is mainly involved in immune regulation. Subsequently, further single-sample gene set enrichment analysis (ssGSEA) showed that the expression of ZCCHC17 was related to the infiltration of immune cells. Importantly, we also analyzed the relationship between ZCCHC17 and immune checkpoint genes, tumor mutation burden (TMB), microsatellite instability (MSI) and TP53 status in HCC patients and evaluated the role of ZCCHC17 in cancer immunotherapy. In summary, ZCCHC17 is a novel marker for the diagnosis and prognostic evaluation of HCC. Concurrently, it regulates immune cells in the tumor microenvironment (TME) of HCC patients, which has a specific reference value for the immunotherapy of HCC.


2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (10) ◽  
pp. 1580 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kyoung Min Moon ◽  
Kyueng-Whan Min ◽  
Mi-Hye Kim ◽  
Dong-Hoon Kim ◽  
Byoung Kwan Son ◽  
...  

Ninety percent of patients with scrub typhus (SC) with vasculitis-like syndrome recover after mild symptoms; however, 10% can suffer serious complications, such as acute respiratory failure (ARF) and admission to the intensive care unit (ICU). Predictors for the progression of SC have not yet been established, and conventional scoring systems for ICU patients are insufficient to predict severity. We aimed to identify simple and robust indicators to predict aggressive behaviors of SC. We evaluated 91 patients with SC and 81 non-SC patients who were admitted to the ICU, and 32 cases from the public functional genomics data repository for gene expression analysis. We analyzed the relationships between several predictors and clinicopathological characteristics in patients with SC. We performed gene set enrichment analysis (GSEA) to identify SC-specific gene sets. The acid-base imbalance (ABI), measured 24 h before serious complications, was higher in patients with SC than in non-SC patients. A high ABI was associated with an increased incidence of ARF, leading to mechanical ventilation and worse survival. GSEA revealed that SC correlated to gene sets reflecting inflammation/apoptotic response and airway inflammation. ABI can be used to indicate ARF in patients with SC and assist with early detection.


2021 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mike Fang ◽  
Brian Richardson ◽  
Cheryl M. Cameron ◽  
Jean-Eudes Dazard ◽  
Mark J. Cameron

Abstract Background In this study, we demonstrate that our modified Gene Set Enrichment Analysis (GSEA) method, drug perturbation GSEA (dpGSEA), can detect phenotypically relevant drug targets through a unique transcriptomic enrichment that emphasizes biological directionality of drug-derived gene sets. Results We detail our dpGSEA method and show its effectiveness in detecting specific perturbation of drugs in independent public datasets by confirming fluvastatin, paclitaxel, and rosiglitazone perturbation in gastroenteropancreatic neuroendocrine tumor cells. In drug discovery experiments, we found that dpGSEA was able to detect phenotypically relevant drug targets in previously published differentially expressed genes of CD4+T regulatory cells from immune responders and non-responders to antiviral therapy in HIV-infected individuals, such as those involved with virion replication, cell cycle dysfunction, and mitochondrial dysfunction. dpGSEA is publicly available at https://github.com/sxf296/drug_targeting. Conclusions dpGSEA is an approach that uniquely enriches on drug-defined gene sets while considering directionality of gene modulation. We recommend dpGSEA as an exploratory tool to screen for possible drug targeting molecules.


2021 ◽  
Vol 44 (3) ◽  
pp. E32-44
Author(s):  
Jia Shen ◽  
Ming Shu ◽  
Shujie Xie ◽  
Jia Yan ◽  
Kaile Pan ◽  
...  

Purpose: This study aimed to screen hepatitis B virus (HBV)-associated hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC)-related feature ribonucleic acids (RNAs) and to establish a prognostic model. Methods: The transcriptome expression data of HBV-associated HCC were downloaded from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database and Gene Expression Omnibus database. Differential RNAs between HBV-associated HCC and normal controls were identified by a meta-analysis of TCGA, GSE55092 and GSE121248. Weighted gene co-expression network analysis was performed to identify key RNAs and modules. A prognostic score model was established using TCGA as a training set by Cox regression analysis and was validated in E-TABM-36 dataset. Additionally, independent prognostic clinical factors were screened, and the function of lncRNAs waspredicted through Gene Set Enrichment Analysis. Results: A total of 710 consistent differential RNAs between HBV-associated HCC and normal controls were obtained, including five lncRNAs and 705 mRNAs. An optimized combination of six differential RNAs (DSCR4, DBH, ECM1, GDAP1, MATR3 and RFC4) was selected and a prognostic score model was constructed. Kaplan-Meier analysis demonstrated that the prognosis of the high-risk and low-risk groups separated by this model was significantly different in the training set and the validation set. Gene Set Enrichment Analysis showed that the co-expression genes of DSCR4 were significantly correlated with neuroactive ligand receptor interactionpathway. Conclusion: A prognostic model based on DSCR4, DBH, ECM1, GDAP1, MATR3 and RFC4 was developed that can accurately predict the prognosis of patients with HBV-associated HCC. These genes, as well as histologic grade, may serve as independent prognostic factors in HBV-associated HCC.


2011 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 3856-3887 ◽  
Author(s):  
Q.Y. Ning ◽  
J.Z. Wu ◽  
N. Zang ◽  
J. Liang ◽  
Y.L. Hu ◽  
...  

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