Systematic Construction and Validation of a Prognostic Model for Hepatocellular Carcinoma Based on Immune-Related Genes

Abstract

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), a highly aggressive tumor, has high incidence and mortality rates. Recently, immunotherapies have been shown to be a promising treatment in HCC. The results of either the CheckMate-040 or IMbrave 150 trials demonstrate the importance of immunotherapy in the systemic treatment of liver cancer. Thus, in this study, we tried to establish a reliable prognostic model for liver cancer based on immune-related genes (IRGs) and to provide a new insight for immunotherapy of HCC. In this study, we used four datasets that incorporated 851 HCC samples, including 340 samples with complete clinical information from the cancer genome atlas (TCGA) database, to establish an effective model for predicting the prognosis of HCC patients based on the differential expression of IRGs and validated the prognostic model using the data from International Cancer Genome Consortium (ICGC). The top 6 characteristic IRGs identified by protein-protein interaction (PPI) network analysis, MMP9, FOS, CAT, ESR1, ANGPTL3, and KLKB1, were selected for further study. In addition, we assessed the correlations of the six characteristic IRGs with the tumor immune microenvironment, clinical stage, and sensitivity to anti-cancer drugs. We also explored whether the differential expression of the characteristic IRGs was specific to HCC or present in pan-cancer. The expression levels of the six characteristic IRGs were significantly different between most tumor tissues and adjacent normal tissues. In addition, these characteristic IRGs showed a strong association with immune cell infiltration in HCC patients. We found that MMP9 and ESR1 were independent prognostic factors for HCC, while CAT, ESR1, and KLKB1 were associated with the clinical stage. We collected HCC paraffin sections from 24 patients from Xijing hospital to identify the differential expression of the five genes (MMP9, ESR1, CAT, FOS, and KLKB1). Finally, the results of decision curve analysis (DCA) and nomogram revealed that our models provided a prognostic benefit for most HCC patients and the predicted overall survival (OS) was consistent with the actual OS. In conclusion, we systemically constructed a novel prognostic model that provides new insights into HCC.

Integrating Network Pharmacology and Bioinformatics to Explore the Effects of Dangshen (Codonopsis pilosula) Against Hepatocellular Carcinoma: Validation Based on the Active Compound Luteolin

“…Several reports have proposed that a low level of ESR1 was a determinant for HCC tumorigenesis or prognosis. 28 , 32–34 Our findings supported the conclusion that low ESR1 expression in HCC favors cancer progression and luteolin exerts anti-HCC action partly through mediation of ESR1 expression. Luteolin is a flavonoid found in plants, such as vegetables, fruits, and herbal medicines, which are effective in the treatment of human malignancies.…”

Comprehensive Analysis of the Correlation Between Pyroptosis-Related LncRNAs and Tumor Microenvironment, Prognosis, and Immune Infiltration in Hepatocellular Carcinoma

“…Heterogeneity exists in tumor cells within and among tumors and the varied landscapes of the tumor microenvironment (TME), Which is directly associated with poor prognosis of HCC patients ( Cao et al, 2020 ). Therapies such as surgery, chemoradiotherapy, liver transplantation, and radiofrequency ablation are limited; hence, the overall prognosis prospects of HCC remain unsatisfactory ( Yu et al, 2021a ). Pyroptosis is a newly discovered programmed cell-death pathway that occurs via classical and non-classical pathways, with continuous cell expansion until the cell membrane ruptures and the releases of cellular contents followed by activation of a strong inflammatory response ( Rogers et al, 2017 ; Broz et al, 2020 ).…”

Matrix metalloproteinase 1 is a poor prognostic biomarker for patients with hepatocellular carcinoma

“…HCC, an aggressive cancer, has a poor long-term prognosis and ranks as the third leading cause of cancer-related death. [17] Despite advances in targeted therapy and immunotherapy, HCC remains an incurable malignant solid tumor. Mounting evidence exists for the functions of MMPs, and furthermore, they are the pivotal mediators in microenvironment alteration-determined tumorigenesis.…”