Clinical Value and Potential Mechanisms Exploration of GOLGA8B in Hepatocellular Carcinoma: A Comprehensive Investigation Based on Real-Time Quantitative Polymerase Chain Reaction, RNA-seq, Microarray and Immunohistochemistry

Abstract

Introduction Recent studies found that GOLGA8B plays an essential role in different cancers. However, the role GOLGA8B plays in the carcinogenesis and development of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) remains unclear. This study explores the clinical significance and prospective mechanisms of GOLGA8B in HCC. Materials and methods The expression of GOLGA8B was detected in tissues of HCC and non-HCC controls. A real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction analysis was performed to evaluate the mRNA expression of GOLGA8B. RNA-sequencing data and microarray chip data were obtained for further analysis. The role GOLGA8B plays in patients with HCC was also evaluated. An immunohistochemistry (IHC) analysis was also performed to evaluate the protein expression of GOLGA8B. The different GOLGA8B expression resources, including mRNA and protein expression, were integrated by calculating standard mean difference (SMD) and summary of the receiver operator characteristic (sROC). Genes co-expressed GOLGA8B were predicted. Enrichment analyses including Gene ontology (GO) and biological pathway were performed to investigate the essential molecular mechanisms. Hub genes were screened out by a protein-protein interactions network. MicroRNAs which target GOLGA8B at a posttranscriptional level were also predicted. Results According to different resources, GOLGA8B manifested a higher expression in tissues of HCC than in non-HCC controls and exhibited clinical values for HCC. The RT-qPCR analysis revealed an increasing trend of GOLGA8B expression in HCC. GOLGA8B expresssion was significantly increased in RNA-sequencing and 7 of 13 microarray chip. IHC analysis also revealed significantly higher expression of GOLGA8B protein. Moreover, GOLGA8B expression was correlated with pathologic tumors and stages according to RNA-sequencing data and IHC analysis. The integrated SMD and sROC of different resources was 0.893 (P=0.004) and 0.79. A total 1303 co-expressed genes were gathered to perform enrichment analyses. The most significant biological pathways of co-expressed genes were spliceosome and mitogen-activated protein kinase signalling (MAPK). Four hub genes (SF3B1, HNRNPA2B1, HNRNPA1 and SRRM2) and five miRNAs (miR-369-3p, miR-203a, miR-374b-5p, miR-139-5p and miR-144-3p) were screened out. Conclusion GOLGA8B expression was increased in HCC and may serve as a novel target for HCC diagnosis and treatment.