scholarly journals EPDR1 correlates with immune cell infiltration in hepatocellular carcinoma and can be used as a prognostic biomarker

2020 ◽  
Vol 24 (20) ◽  
pp. 12107-12118
Author(s):  
Ruochan Chen ◽  
Yiya Zhang
2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ruochan Chen ◽  
Yiya Zhang

Abstract Background: Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) has high mortality rate and is a serious disease burden globally. Hence, identification and characterization of novel biomarkers for the diagnosis and prognosis of HCC are critically important. The protein EPDR1 (ependymin related 1) is a member of piscine brain glycoproteins and is involved in cell adhesion. This is the first study to report the expression of EPDR1 and its prognostic significance, pathological role, and association with cancer immunity in HCC.Methods: The gene expression, prognostic, and clinicopathological analyses were performed based on the data obtained from multiple transcriptome databases. Protein expression of EPDR1 in HCC was verified using human protein atlas and CPTAC databases. Co-expression network analysis using the LinkedOmics database was performed to identify genes co-expressed with EPDR1 expression. Functional analysis of the co-expressed genes, including gene set enrichment analysis was performed to identify the functional role of EPDR1. The statistical analysis was conducted in R, and the relationship between EPDR1 expression and immune cell infiltration was analyzed using TIMER and CIBERSORT resources. Results: The expression of EPDR1 was found to be significantly higher in HCC tissues than in the normal tissues and is an independent prognostic factor for the overall survival of HCC patients. Further, a high level of EPDR1 was shown to be correlated with advanced stage of HCC. Functional analysis revealed that EPDR1 is associated with multiple signaling pathways as well as pathways related to cancer and apoptosis. Notably, EPDR1 expression significantly correlated with purity and the infiltration levels of B cells, CD8+ and CD4+ T cells, macrophages, neutrophils, and dendritic cells in HCC. Further, the EPDR1 expression significantly correlated with the expression of immune signatures, such as KIR2DL4, ITGAM, GATA3, STAT6, STAT5A, BCL6, STAT3, and HAVCR2.Conclusions: Our study identified EPDR1 as a novel prognostic biomarker in HCC. The expression of EPDR1 was shown to be associated with immune cell infiltration as well as the signature molecules that potentially regulate these processes during the carcinogenesis of HCC. With better understanding of its biological function, EPDR1 could become an effective target for HCC diagnosis and treatment in the future.


2021 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xing-Wei Xie ◽  
Shan-Shan Jiang ◽  
Xiang Li

C-Type Lectin Domain Family 3 Member B (CLEC3B) encodes proteins associated with tumor invasion and metastasis. However, the interrelation between CLEC3B gene expression, tumor immunity, and prognosis of patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is unclear. This study was conducted to investigate the prognostic potential of CLEC3B and its association with tumor tissue infiltration markers. CLEC3B expression was examined using the TIMER and Oncomine databases, with its prognostic potential assessed using the GEPIA and Kaplan–Meier plotter databases. The relationship between CLEC3B and tumor immune cell infiltration biomarkers was analyzed using TIMER. Here, we revealed that CLEC3B expression was decreased in HCC and was correlated with a poor survival rate in patients with HCC. Additionally, the expression of CLEC3B was negatively correlated with differential immune cell infiltration and various immune biomarkers. These results indicate a potential mechanism by which the expression of CLEC3B might adjust tumor immunity by modulating the infiltration of HCC immune cells. Our study demonstrated that CLEC3B could be a potential prognostic biomarker and might be involved in tumor immune cell infiltration in HCC.


2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
Lianxiang Luo ◽  
Yushi Zheng ◽  
Zhiping Lin ◽  
Xiaodi Li ◽  
Xiaoling Li ◽  
...  

It has attracted growing attention that the role of serine hydroxy methyl transferase 2 (SHMT2) in various types of cancers. However, the prognostic role of SHMT2 in lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD) and its relationship with immune cell infiltration is not clear. In this study, the information of mRNA expression and clinic data in LUAD were, respectively, downloaded from the GEO and TCGA database. We conducted a biological analysis to select the signature gene SHMT2. Online databases including Oncomine, GEPIA, TISIDB, TIMER, and HPA were applied to analyze the characterization of SHMT2 expression, prognosis, and the correlation with immune infiltration in LUAD. The mRNA expression and protein expression of SHMT2 in LUAD tissues were higher than in normal tissue. A Kaplan-Meier analysis showed that patients with lower expression level of SHMT2 had a better overall survival rate. Multivariate analysis and the Cox proportional hazard regression model revealed that SHMT2 expression was an independent prognostic factor in patients with LUAD. Meanwhile, the gene SHMT2 was highly associated with tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes in LUAD. These results suggest that the SHMT2 gene is a promising candidate as a potential prognostic biomarker and highly associated with different types of immune cell infiltration in LUAD.


2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yang Bu ◽  
Kejun Liu ◽  
Yiming Niu ◽  
Ji Hao ◽  
Lei Cui ◽  
...  

Abstract Background: Glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase (G6PD) plays an important role in the metabolic and immunological aspects of tumors. In hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), the alteration of tumor microenvironment influences recurrence and metastasis. We extracted G6PD-related data from public databases of HCC tissues and used a bioinformatics approach to explore the correlation between G6PD expression and clinicopathological features and prognosis of immune cell infiltration in HCC.Methods: We extract G6PD expression information from TCGA and GEO databases in liver cancer tissues and normal tissues, validated by immunohistochemistry, and the correlation between G6PD expression and clinical features is analyzed, and the clinical significance of G6PD in liver cancer is assessed by Kaplan-Meier, Cox regression and prognostic line graph models. Functional enrichment analysis is performed by protein-protein interaction (PPI) network, GO/KEGG, GSEA and G6PD-associated differentially expressed genes (DEGs). TIMER and ssGSEA packages are used to assess the correlation between expression and the level of immune cell infiltration.Results: Our results show that G6PD expression is significantly upregulated in hepatocellular carcinoma tissues (P < 0.001). G6PD expression is associated with histological grade, pathological stage, T-stage, vascular infiltration and AFP level (P < 0.05); HCC patients in the low G6PD expression group had longer overall survival and better prognosis compared with the high G6PD expression group (P < 0.05). The level of G6PD expression also affects the levels of macrophages, unactivated dendritic cells, B cells, and follicular helper T cells in the tumor microenvironment.Conclusion: High expression of G6PD is a potential biomarker for poor prognosis of hepatocellular carcinoma, and G6PD may be a target for immunotherapy of HCC.


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhuomao Mo ◽  
Daiyuan Liu ◽  
Dade Rong ◽  
Shijun Zhang

Background: Generally, hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) exists in an immunosuppressive microenvironment that promotes tumor evasion. Hypoxia can impact intercellular crosstalk in the tumor microenvironment. This study aimed to explore and elucidate the underlying relationship between hypoxia and immunotherapy in patients with HCC.Methods: HCC genomic and clinicopathological datasets were obtained from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA-LIHC), Gene Expression Omnibus databases (GSE14520) and International Cancer Genome Consortium (ICGC-LIRI). The TCGA-LIHC cases were divided into clusters based on single sample gene set enrichment analysis and hierarchical clustering. After identifying patients with immunosuppressive microenvironment with different hypoxic conditions, correlations between immunological characteristics and hypoxia clusters were investigated. Subsequently, a hypoxia-associated score was established by differential expression, univariable Cox regression, and lasso regression analyses. The score was verified by survival and receiver operating characteristic curve analyses. The GSE14520 cohort was used to validate the findings of immune cell infiltration and immune checkpoints expression, while the ICGC-LIRI cohort was employed to verify the hypoxia-associated score.Results: We identified hypoxic patients with immunosuppressive HCC. This cluster exhibited higher immune cell infiltration and immune checkpoint expression in the TCGA cohort, while similar significant differences were observed in the GEO cohort. The hypoxia-associated score was composed of five genes (ephrin A3, dihydropyrimidinase like 4, solute carrier family 2 member 5, stanniocalcin 2, and lysyl oxidase). In both two cohorts, survival analysis revealed significant differences between the high-risk and low-risk groups. In addition, compared to other clinical parameters, the established score had the highest predictive performance at both 3 and 5 years in two cohorts.Conclusion: This study provides further evidence of the link between hypoxic signals in patients and immunosuppression in HCC. Defining hypoxia-associated HCC subtypes may help reveal potential regulatory mechanisms between hypoxia and the immunosuppressive microenvironment, and our hypoxia-associated score could exhibit potential implications for future predictive models.


2021 ◽  
Vol Volume 14 ◽  
pp. 2003-2017
Author(s):  
Zenghua Deng ◽  
Mengmeng Xiao ◽  
Dexiao Du ◽  
Nan Luo ◽  
Dongfang Liu ◽  
...  

PeerJ ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
pp. e12315
Author(s):  
Bing-Bing Shang ◽  
Jun Chen ◽  
Zhi-Guo Wang ◽  
Hui Liu

Background Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is an inflammation-associated tumor involved in immune tolerance and evasion in the immune microenvironment. Heat shock proteins (HSPs) are involved in the occurrence, progression, and immune regulation of tumors. Therefore, HSPs have been considered potential therapeutic targets. Here, we aimed to elucidate the value of HSP family A (Hsp70) member 4 (HSPA4) in the diagnosis and predicting prognosis of HCC, and its relationship with immune cell infiltration, immune cell biomarkers, and immune checkpoints. Gene mutation, DNA methylation, and the pathway involved in HCC were also analyzed. Methods The gene expression omnibus (GEO) and The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) databases were used to compare HSPA4 expression, and the results were confirmed by immunohistochemical staining of clinical samples. R package was used to analyze the correlation between HSPA4 and cancer stage, and to establish receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve of diagnosis, time-dependent survival ROC curve, and a nomogram model. cBioPortal and MethSurv were used to identify genetic alterations and DNA methylation, and their effect on prognosis. The Tumor Immune Estimation Resource (TIMER) was used to analyze immune cell infiltration, immune cell biomarkers, and immune checkpoints. The STRING database was used to analyze protein–protein interaction network information. Gene Ontology (GO) analysis and the Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) analyses were performed to investigate the functions of HSPA4 and its functional partner genes. Results Overexpression of HSPA4 was identified in 25 cancers. Overexpression of HSPA4 considerably correlated with cancer stage and alpha-fetoprotein (AFP) level in HCC. Patients with higher HSPA4 expression showed poorer prognosis. HSPA4 expression can accurately identify tumor from normal tissue (AUC = 0.957). The area under 1-, 3-, and 5-year survival ROCs were above 0.6. The HSPA4 genetic alteration rate was 1.3%. Among the 14 DNA methylation CpG sites, seven were related to the prognosis of HCC. HSPA4 was positively related to immune cell infiltration and immune checkpoints (PD-1 and CTLA-4) in HCC. The KEGG pathway enrichment analysis revealed HSPA4 enrichment in antigen processing and presentation together with HSPA8 and HSP90AA1. We verified the value of HSPA4 in the diagnosis and predicting prognosis of HCC. HSPA4 may not only participate in the occurrence and progression but also the immune regulation of HCC. Therefore, HSPA4 can be a potential diagnostic and prognostic biomarker and a therapeutic target for HCC.


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