Abstract
Background: Epithelial-mesenchymal transformation (EMT) promotes cancer metastasis, including hepatocellular carcinoma. Therefore, EMT-related gene signature was explored.
Objective: The present study was designed to develop an EMT-related gene signature for predicting the prognosis of patients with hepatocellular carcinoma..
Methods: An integrated gene expression analysis based on tumor data of the patients with hepatocellular carcinoma from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA), HCCDB18, and GSE14520 dataset was conducted. An EMT-related gene signature was constructed by the least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) and COX regression analysis of univariate and multivariate survival.
Results: A 3-EMT gene signature was developed and validated based on gene expression profiles of hepatocellular carcinoma from three microarray platforms. Patients with a high-risk score had significantly worse overall survival (OS) than those with low-risk scores. The EMT-related gene signature showed a high performance in accurately predicting prognosis and examining the clinical characteristics and immune score analysis. Univariate and multivariate Cox regression analyses confirmed that the EMT-related gene signature was an independent prognostic factor for predicting survival in hepatocellular carcinoma patients. Compared with the existing models, our EMTrelated gene signature reached a higher area under the curve (AUC).
Conclusion: Our findings provide novel insight into understanding EMT and help identify hepatocellular carcinoma patients with poor prognosis.
Keywords: Hepatocellular carcinoma, epithelial-mesenchymal transformation, signature, prognosis, bioinformatics, liver cancer.
Graphical Abstract
[http://dx.doi.org/10.3322/caac.21551] [PMID: 30620402]
[http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1440-1746.2009.05784.x] [PMID: 19220670]
[PMID: 31142072]
[http://dx.doi.org/10.1146/annurev-pathol-020117-043854] [PMID: 29414248]
[http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13046-018-0887-z] [PMID: 30157906]
[http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jhep.2016.05.007] [PMID: 27212245]
[http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s13277-015-4458-z] [PMID: 26614432]
[http://dx.doi.org/10.3892/or.2017.5457] [PMID: 28259942]
[http://dx.doi.org/10.18632/aging.101749] [PMID: 30670676]
[http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2018.03.049] [PMID: 29625044]
[http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.gpb.2018.07.003] [PMID: 30266410]
[http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12935-019-0858-2] [PMID: 31139015]
[http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00180-013-0400-2]
[http://dx.doi.org/10.1158/0008-5472.CAN-17-0307] [PMID: 29092952]
[http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13059-016-1070-5] [PMID: 27765066]
[http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.celrep.2016.12.019] [PMID: 28052254]
[http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2105-14-7] [PMID: 23323831]
[http://dx.doi.org/10.2147/CMAR.S181396] [PMID: 30538557]
[http://dx.doi.org/10.18632/aging.102926] [PMID: 32191631]
[http://dx.doi.org/10.2147/CMAR.S178579] [PMID: 30464626]
[http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/jcmm.13863] [PMID: 30247807]
[http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/jcb.28187] [PMID: 30582205]
[http://dx.doi.org/10.2147/CMAR.S176152] [PMID: 30464627]
[http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ebiom.2019.08.064] [PMID: 31492561]
[http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2019/9423907] [PMID: 31886121]
[http://dx.doi.org/10.21873/cgp.20024] [PMID: 28387651]
[http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/hep.24703] [PMID: 21953299]
[http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nm843] [PMID: 12640447]
[PMID: 31814897]
[http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1559-0275-11-41] [PMID: 26029019]
[http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1478-3231.2011.02619.x]